The Cover Wife A novel

From the award-winning author of Safe Houses—an "intelligent, tense and sharply written espionage thriller” (Wall Street Journal) about a CIA agent and a young expat who find themselves caught up in a dangerous world, whose secrets, if revealed, could have disastrous repercussions for them both.

When CIA agent Claire Saylor is told that she’ll be going undercover in Hamburg to pose as the wife of an academic who has published a controversial interpretation of the Quran’s promise to martyrs, she assumes the job is a punishment for past unorthodox behavior. But when she discovers her team leader is Paul Bridger, another Agency maverick, she realizes there may be more to this mission than meets the eye—and not just for professional reasons.

Meanwhile, across town in Hamburg, Mahmoud, a recent Moroccan émigré, begins to fall under the sway of a group of radicals at his local mosque. The deeper he’s drawn into the group, the greater the danger he faces, and he is soon torn between his obligations to them and his feelings toward a beautiful Westernized Muslim woman.

As Claire learns the truth about her mission, and Mahmoud grows closer to the radicals, the danger between them builds and spells disaster far beyond the CIA.

DAN FESPERMAN's travels as a journalist and novelist have taken him to thirty countries and three war zones. Lie in the Dark won the Crime Writers' Association of Britain's John Creasey New Blood Dagger award for best first crime novel, The Small Boat of Great Sorrows won their Ian Fleming Steel Dagger award for best thriller, and The Prisoner of Guantánamo won the Hammett Prize from the International Association of Crime Writers. He lives in Baltimore.