Shane Collins is fifty-two, divorced, twenty-five years in the CIA, and finishing his career in Bahrain during the Arab Spring, chasing evidence of Iranian support for the Shia uprising that his bosses in Washington badly want to exist. He’s tired, drinking, and reporting to a station chief half his age. Then he meets Almaisa, a Bahraini artist who shows him the parts of the island the expat compounds never touch, and his informant gets tangled in a killing. Berry spent six years as a CIA operations officer, including two in Bahrain during the uprising, and it shows in the tradecraft and the fatigue. It won the Edgar for best first novel.
The Peacock and the Sparrow