One of the most lauded page-turners of the twenty-first century, Hayes' blockbuster epic combines impossible murder mystery with globe-spanning conspiracy thriller as the eponymous former secret service agent holds the world to ransom.
Can you commit the perfect crime? Pilgrim is the codename for a man who doesn't exist.
The adopted son of a wealthy American family, he once headed up a secret espionage unit for US intelligence. Before he disappeared into anonymous retirement, he wrote the definitive book on forensic criminal investigation. But that book will come back to haunt him.
It will help NYPD detective Ben Bradley track him down. And it will take him to a rundown New York hotel room where the body of a woman is found facedown in a bath of acid, her features erased, her teeth missing, her fingerprints gone. It is a textbook murder - and Pilgrim wrote the book.
What begins as an unusual and challenging investigation will become a terrifying race-against-time to save America from oblivion. Pilgrim will have to make a journey from a public beheading in Mecca to a deserted ruins on the Turkish coast via a Nazi death camp in Alsace and the barren wilderness of the Hindu Kush in search of the faceless man who would commit an appalling act of mass murder in the name of his God.
Publisher: Transworld Publishers Ltd
ISBN: 9780552160964
Number of pages: 912
Weight: 608 g
Dimensions: 198 x 127 x 38 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
'The best thriller I've read in ten years... An astonishing piece of work.' - Linwood Barclay
'Delivers thrills and spills... A full tilt mix of Homeland, The Wire and The Bourne Ultimatum.' - The Mail on Sunday
'I Am Pilgrim is a 21st century thriller: a high concept plot, but with finely drawn protagonists. The plot twists and turns like a python in a sack. The style is visceral, gritty and cinematic...A satisfying and ambitious book, written with skill and verve.' - Adam LeBor.' - The Times
'Rendition yourself into a pulsating thriller that never lets up as it carries the hero and the reader on an ever more desperate race between time and an all too plausible disaster for the world we live in. Great nail-biting stuff!' - Robert Goddard
'The narrative is thrilling: the tension tightens with action...It's a murder mystery, an illuminating account of contemporary international politics and a study of an unusual man... An excellent thriller which as a first novel is really remarkable.' - The Literary Review
You may also be interested in...
“One of the best.”
One of the best thrillers I’ve ever read – and a book I’m absolutely convinced will slowly take the world by storm. Everyone I’ve pushed this book on (and there have been a lot of them) has come back to me raving... More
“5 stars!!!!!”
This was recommended by a friend.
If you enjoy crime / thriller books then this needs to be on your to be read pile.
I had not heard much about this book prior to the recommendation so I was a little worried when I...
More
“Superb!”
One of the best thrillers I have read in years. Believable, great sub-plots, well researched, excellent detail, and I am writing this review at 4:00 a.m. having had to finish reading it. I hope Terry Hayes writes more... More
Please sign in to write a review
Sign In / Register
Sign In
Download the Waterstones App
Would you like to proceed to the App store to download the Waterstones App?