City on the Edge
by David Swinson
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Pub Date May 25 2021 | Archive Date Jun 25 2021
Description
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, 1974, 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.
Advance Praise
“Swinson offers the reader a deeply felt coming-of-age novel set against a background of powerful authenticity. This is not to be missed.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Stunning and thoroughly gripping . . . The narrator is sensitively drawn, and the setting is vividly rendered.” —Booklist
“Unfolds with cool understatement and entertaining period details (prepare for an onslaught of Jethro Tull) and builds to a satisfying climax.” —Kirkus Reviews
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9780316528542 |
| PRICE | $36.00 (USD) |
| PAGES | 336 |
Links
Featured Reviews
cynde s, Librarian
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.
Reviewer 173301
City on the Edge by David Swinson is a superb read with a well defined plot and characters. Well worth the read!
Readers who liked this book also liked:
Jodi Picoult; Jennifer Finney Boylan
General Fiction (Adult), Literary Fiction, Women's Fiction
