I Am Pilgrim

Starred review from July 28, 2014
Screenwriter Hayes’s action-packed debut thriller introduces Scott Murdoch, a burnt-out, upper-echelon spy known as Pilgrim, who is drawn out of retirement when a Middle Eastern terrorist launches a devastating biological attack on the U.S. The voice that British-trained American actor Ragland uses is, on first hearing, surprisingly soft and youthful for a brilliant, world-weary ex-agent. But as the story progresses on a twisty, neatly crafted journey from the U.S. to Afghanistan, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip, and, eventually, Turkey, this almost-nerdy narration develops a harder, determined edge. There is a particularly grueling, gruesome sequence in which Murdoch is battered, beaten, and waterboarded, nearly to death. Ragland turns the spy’s very human reaction to the torture into a performance piece. An Atria/Emily Bestler hardcover.

Starred review from March 3, 2014
Screenwriter and producer Hayes (Payback) makes his fiction debut with an exceptional thriller that boasts an utterly credible narrator who has had so many covert identities he can barely remember his original name. Soul-weary Scott Murdoch (aka the Pilgrim) has retired from the top echelon of ultrasecret espionage, but duty and faith in the human spirit call him back into service. A lone-wolf Middle Eastern native whom the Pilgrim code names “the Saracen” has a sure-fire bioterrorist plot to destroy the United States. In the cinematic chase that ensues, the action traverses the globe, from the Oval Office to the dusty trails of Afghanistan, each scene fleshed out in the smallest resonating detail (e.g., a Down syndrome child’s laughter, the endless nausea of waterboarding). Like many pilgrimages, this one is painfully long and packed with unexpected menace, its glimpses of the goal fitful and far between, but readers will agree that this journey of body and soul is well worth the effort. Agent: Jay Mandel, WME.