“A spellbinding and totally original thriller” (Philipp Meyer, author of The Son) by PEN/Hemingway Award winner of The Yellow Birds.
One early morning on a Norfolk beach in Virginia, a dead body is discovered by a man taking his daily swim—Arman Bajalan, formerly an interpreter in Iraq. After narrowly surviving an assassination attempt that killed his wife and child, Arman has been given lonely sanctuary in the US as a maintenance worker at the Sea Breeze Motel. Now, convinced that the body is connected to his past, he knows he is still not safe.
Seasoned detective Catherine Wheel and her newly minted partner have little to go on beyond a bus ticket in the dead man’s pocket. It leads them to Sally Ewell, a local journalist as grief-stricken as Arman is by the Iraq War, who is investigating a corporation on the cusp of landing a multi-billion-dollar government defense contract.
As victims mount around Arman, taking the team down wrong turns and towards startling evidence, they find themselves in a race, committed to unraveling the truth and keeping Arman alive—even if it costs them absolutely everything.
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That the same man can give us The Yellow Birds, A Shout in the Ruins, and now A Line in the Sand is proof that Kevin Powers has got some serious range. This time, he’s written a thriller, with a crime so big and characters so flawed, you’ll be holding your breath the whole time….The book’s got all the stuff you’ve always loved about Powers’ writing: a deep and abiding understanding of what soldiers sacrifice, a thoughtful examination of the place he grew up, and prose so beautiful it’ll make you weep.
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Rachel Beanland, author of Florence Adler Swims Forever