Book-of-the-Month and Military Book Club selection.

"A remarkable detour; the septuagenarian master has crafted a killer of a page-turner ... It's gripping, it's provocative, it's frequently funny." - Kirkus Reviews, starred.

"This marvelous novel can be accurately labeled as a 9/11 novel, but it deserves also the label of masterpiece for its carefully nuanced building up of the psychology of those who traffic in terrorism. Timely and topical, poised and passionate, it is a high mark in Updike's career." - Booklist, starred.

The son of a bohemian Irish-American mother and an Egyptian father who disappeared when he was three, Ahmad turned to Islam at the age of eleven, and feels his faith constantly threatened by the materialistic, hedonistic society that surrounds him. Ahmad's devotion to Allah is misguided by an opportunistic imam, and the mild-mannered, intelligent young man slowly becomes the tool of terrorism.