The Traveler

Urumqi, China, May 1989-one month before the events of Tiananmen Square. A young Uyghur boy is forced into exile across Central Asia, as growing unrest against communist rule spreads throughout Xinjiang Province. Adopted by a fixer and fundraiser for jihad, he grows up in fundamentalist circles, developing a deeply rooted hatred for both the West and China. Barely into adulthood, he joins the mujahideen fighting on the porous borders between Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan, before being noticed by Osama bin Laden, who entrusts him with a deadly mission for which he will spend years preparing. To stop him, Erwan Tanguy, a special forces operative working for France’s intelligence services, and Xie Wei, a beautiful but dangerous officer in China’s Ministry of State Security, will form a pragmatic alliance that will take them from Southeast Asia to the Horn of Africa, Spain and India, before a final, explosive confrontation in Hong Kong. In his second novel, former investment banker and author of the thriller Hard Underwriting, Philippe Espinasse, creates a fast-paced and well-tailored plot with nonstop action and edge-of-your seat suspense.