Firefly

by Henry Porter

Overview

Henry Porter, who has been widely hailed as a next-generation John le Carré, is a bestselling author in the UK and has won the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award. From the refugee camps of Greece to the mountains of Macedonia, a thirteen-year-old boy is making his way to Germany and to safety. Codenamed “Firefly,” he holds vital intelligence: unparalleled insight into a vicious ISIS terror cell, and details of their plans. But the terrorists are hot on his trail, determined he won’t live to pass on the information.

When MI6 become aware of Firefly and what he knows, the race is on to find him. Luc Samson, ex-MI6 agent and now private eye, finds himself recruited to the cause. Fluent in Arabic thanks to his Lebanese heritage and himself the product of an earlier era of violent civil war, Samson’s job is to find Firefly, win his trust, and get him to safety.

A devastatingly timely thriller following the refugee trail from Syria to Europe, Firefly is a sophisticated, breathtaking race against time from an author who brings a whole new level of urgency to the genre.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802128959
Publisher:	Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Publication date:	10/02/2018
Pages:	480
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.60(d)

About the Author

Henry Porter is the UK editor of Vanity Fair and writes about European power and politics for the Hive. He has written five internationally bestselling thrillers, including Brandenburg Gate, which won the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger, and The Bell Ringers, which was also nominated for the award.

Read an Excerpt

His head went under. Seawater filled his nose and mouth; his eyes opened and he saw the black depths of the ocean below him. A moment later something knocked his legs – maybe part of the wreckage, he couldn’t tell. All he knew was that he was going to die. Then it came again. This time there was a distinct shove on his buttocks and whatever it was that moved with such intent beneath him lifted him up so his head and shoulders came out of the water and he was able to grab a plastic toggle on the section of the rubber craft that was still inflated.

He clung to the toggle and retched and blinked and blinked again.

The sea was very strange to the boy, with its violence and the salty water that stung his eyes and the gash on his head that had been made with the handle of a gun by one of the men when they were being herded onto the raft. He rubbed his eyes with the knuckle of his free hand and cast around. There was nothing to see in the dawn, not even the shadow of the coast they’d spotted a few minutes before the boat had begun to sink.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Firefly:

“[Porter’s] best book yet…Firefly is its own magnificent hybrid: partly a young adult adventure in the tradition of Huckleberry Finn and Harry Potter; partly a le Carré-esque study of an outsider spy ambivalent about the messy business of espionage; and partly fictionalised journalism, and an impressive rendition of the mass flight from the Middle East that was clearly heavily researched and observed on the ground…it’s possible to imagine it challenging for the Orwell prize for political writing, such is the power of its depiction of the migrant exodus. Full of poignant scenes and mesmeric action sequences, it may be the first novel to do justice to the phenomenon’s epic scale.” –The Times (UK)

"With its vivid portrait of the flood of refugees moving west from Macedonia, Serbia and Turkey, the book could not be more timely, and Porter’s sympathy for the dispossessed is as cogent here as his skill at sustaining narrative tension."—Barry Forshaw, The Guardian

“Splendid … tension is high throughout. Precocious 13-year-old Syrian Naji is an appealing, intelligent hero.” –The Times (UK)

“Porter can be trusted to know exactly how much sentimentality, how much action and how much inside information will make the perfect mixture. He is also a wizard with words. A very good thriller.” –Literary Review

“A welcome return . . . Firefly seems ripped from the headlines and is both timely and terrific.”—Mick Herron, CWA Gold Dagger Award-winning author of Dead Lions

“A classic chase thriller with an on-the-scenes look at the Syrian refugee crisis—it doesn’t get more contemporary than this.” —Joseph Kanon, Edgar-winning author of Los Alamos and Defectors

“Firefly proves once again that Porter is both his own man and the proud carrier of the flag first unfurled by John le Carre more than fifty years ago. British espionage fiction is the best in the world, and Porter is part of the reason why.” —Lee Child, author of the Jack Reacher series, most recently Gone Tomorrow

“Firefly accomplishes what too few novels today even try to do: this engrossing chase story of terrorism, spies and refugees takes the reader through the realities of our current war-torn world’s innocents even as the novel entertains. This is an important thriller about the real world we all must survive.” —James Grady, author of Six Days of the Condor and Last Days of the Condor

“The eagerly awaited return of an espionage master.” —Charles Cumming, author of A Divided Spy

Praise for Henry Porter:

“A sophisticated, engrossing, and important political thriller.”—Washington Post, on The Bell Ringers

“Superb.”—Boston Globe, on The Bell Ringers

“Read it and you’ll be hooked.”—Dallas Morning News, on The Bell Ringers

“A first-rate thriller . . . Porter sustains an elaborate plot skillfully and portrays memorable, multi-faceted characters.”—Sunday Times (UK), on Brandenburg Gate

“A powerful, propulsive piece of thriller writing.”—Observer (UK), on Empire State

“Henry Porter has fast become one of the masters of the genre.”—Sunday Telegraph (UK), on Brandenburg Gate

“Clever, gripping.”—Philip Kerr, on Brandenburg Gate

“A wonderful novel. I read it addictively and was sorry the minute it was over. It’s way too good to be called a thriller.”—Richard Ford, on The Bell Ringers

“For those who like political thrillers, this is one of the season’s best: scary, informative and, alas, eminently believable.”—Economist, on The Bell Ringers

“Henry Porter writes fabulous novels . . . A spy novel for everyone who loves le Carré and Deighton, but with a crisp modern woman in charge. You won’t put this novel down until the final paragraph.”—Globe & Mail (Canada), on The Bell Ringers

“A topnotch Cold War thriller . . . [a] tour de force on a par with John le Carré.”—Library Journal (starred review), on Brandenburg Gate

From the Publisher