I’m a big fan of Swinson’s novels, so I was really looking forward to reading this. It contains the same very good prose and characterization of his other books. This one doesn’t quite move as well, though, and wasn’t as gripping as I’d expected. However, I nevertheless enjoyed it, and look forward to reading everything else he writes in the future.

This was a good book but the mystery seemed to be buried inside the book and was a bit hard to find.
An American teen living abroad discovers the truth about himself and his family in this thrilling novel from "one of the best dialogue hounds in the business" (New York Times Book Review).

In the wake of a baffling tragedy, 13-year-old Graham moves with his family to Beirut, Lebanon, a city on the edge of the sea and cataclysmic violence. Inquisitive and restless by nature, Graham suspects his State Department father is a CIA operative, and that their family’s fragile domesticity is merely a front for American efforts along the nearby Israeli border. Over the course of one year, 1972, Graham’s life will utterly change. Two men are murdered, his parent’s marriage disintegrates, and Graham, along with his two ex-pat friends, run afoul of forces they cannot understand.
The City on the Edge is elegiac, atmospheric, and utterly authentic. It’s the story of innocents caught within the American net of espionage, of the Lebanese transformed by such interference, of the children who ran dangerously beside the churning wheel of history. One part Stephen King’s “The Body” and another John le Carre’s A Perfect Spy, it’s a transformative crime story told with heart and genuine experience.

David Swinson’s City On The Edge is described as a “transformative crime story,” set in Beirut in the 1970s. Told from the perspective of 13-year-old Graham, who lives with his State Department father, younger brother, and the mother who is apparently drunk most of the time and fights with David’s father constantly, it takes place over the course of a year. The family lives in a large apartment building with Micheline, their live-in “housekeeper, cook, nanny, sometimes friend.” Graham makes two good friends and, together, they explore and build a “fort” and generally act like early teen-aged boys, in search for adventure.

Graham isn’t really sure what his father does for a living, although he has some suspicions that Dad is more than an administrative worker (particularly when he finds the gun his father carries in his briefcase). One day, Graham and his friends are in the fort when a murder is committed RIGHT THERE in front of the shocked Graham, his friends having left for home already. The story of Graham’s interaction with the murder investigation, his run-in with a local teenage bad guy, his mixed feelings as he begins to discover how his body responds to seeing a woman undressing — all of it is incredibly well written and really held my interest.

Swinson himself is the son of a foreign service officer, and lived in various places around the world growing up (including Beirut), so his depiction of the picturesque seaside city as it begins its sad slide from being the “Paris of the Mideast” to being a violence-ridden, unsafe site of terror attacks and espionage. The impact of foreign interference in the various battles going on throughout the region is apparent, revealed gradually as the story unfolds, Graham’s parents’ marriage disintegrates, and the entire family has to leave Lebanon…except for his father, who has unfinished business there. It’s not exactly a page-turner, although I was motivated to keep reading to find out what happened to Graham and his friends and family.

The author really knows the City of Beirut and what it is like to be the son of a “foreign service officer” growing up in various newsworthy cities (Beirut, Mexico City, Saigon). I will happily read Mr. Swinson’s next book, and perhaps may try his series about a D.C.-based private investigator. Thanks to Mulholland Books and NetGalley for a copy of City On The Edge in exchange for this honest review. Four stars.

I loved City on the Edge. A friend of mine lived in Beirut as a child during the same time period of this novel. Knowing her stories of living there made reading this book fascinating.

Beautiful coming of age story against the background of 70s Beirut. David Swinson never fails with his writing. A great departure from his Frank Marr series. A view of the world from someone who has lived there. Well recommended.

City on the Edge by David Swinson is a superb read with a well defined plot and characters. Well worth the read!

An American boy living in Lebanon because his father is a diplomat of some kind hangs out with a couple of other American boys as the city begins to edge toward civil war. While concealed in a "fort" the boys made of scrap he witnesses a murder and, while he can't see the killer he hears him speak in broken Arabic and then say "damn fool" in English. He cooks up a cover story for finding a body without telling his parents (or the police) what he witnessed because he wasn't supposed to be anywhere near at the time. Meanwhile a well-connected Lebanese teen has picked a fight with him and is a growing threat.

This is an odd book, partly a coming of age story, partly a novel about Americans abroad at a particular time and place (his mother is a depressed drunk, his father is possibly a spook, they eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and have next to no connection with the local culture, partly because of the political situation but largely because they're incurious Americans abroad. And it's a murder mystery, though you wouldn't know it when it comes to pacing and plot. It's Leave it to Beaver transplanted to a foreign land and given parents who wandered in from a John Cheever novel. Kind of interesting, but I would have liked to see more of Lebanon and a little more animation. The city may be on edge, but the reader isn't.

1972 Beirut, Graham and his family arrive at his father's new assignment in the Foreign Service. Their apartment building is on a hill near the sea. Graham is twelve and everything about his new home is exciting. He looks forward to snorkeling off the reefs in the sea and making friends among the other American children whose fathers serve the U.S. government. He makes two new friends, Roddy and Lenny, they have adventures, build a fort in a brush pile and spy on the neighborhood with Graham's binoculars. Until one day when playing in the fort the two friends leave and Graham is there alone. He hears two men talking near the fort(brush pile) looking out between the sticks he sees the one man stab the other man. The man falls back dead right outside the fort. Graham runs away as fast as he can.The book is a kid's eye view of a very volatile country on the edge of war and the stresses of growing up in such a place. The unfolding mystery of the murderer takes a dangerous twisting pace as seen through the boys eyes. The author's father was in the Foreign Service and live all over the world on assignments with his dad so the book has almost an autobiographical quality to it.