The Haze

by Burnaby Hawkes

Overview

In 2013, while the Muslim Brotherhood consolidates power over Egypt and the rest of the Middle East, a university professor and former CIA spy based in Cairo called "Hector Kane" receives an unlikely call from the Company.

They need him back-and back quick.

It's been two and a half years since Hector has heard anything from his former handlers. So why now, he wonders, when all his attempts to contact them have been in vain?

They meet on a felucca, and the offer Hector receives boggles him. He will be reinstated into the CIA, and be promoted to deputy chief of the Cairo station, only if he will agree to this one last mission, for old times' sake:

Go on summer vacation-they tell him-to this posh tropical island in the South China Sea. Take your university class with you. And your wife also; she's Asian and could be helpful there.

But once in Asia, things get more mysterious with every passing day. First, Hector has to question the nature of his mission when the CIA asks him to infect one of his students with a deadly virus.

Then, a Saudi prince calls him, and claims that Hector's wife-Yubi-is a secret Chinese agent who's not only cheated on him, but seduced and kidnapped the prince's very son.

Torn between informing the CIA about his wife and disinforming them, between doing and undoing his mission, Hector feels like the proverbial man between a rock and a hard place.

Join Hector on his emotional odyssey. He will dash through the misty corridors of espionage; travel across the world from Asia to the Middle East and beyond; and then unravel the many meanings of love, peace, and duty.

"Engrossing... Hawkes keeps the twists coming... Fans of superior post-Cold War spy fiction will be satisfied." - Publishers Weekly

"A knotty and satisfying tale of action, drama, and secrets." - Kirkus Reviews

"With its relentless pace, smart plot, and top-notch writing, The Haze makes for a most appealing and compelling read... The Haze is a must-read for fans of Spy Stories and is recommended without reservation." - Book Viral

"A thoroughly enjoyable contemporary spy novel recommended to fans of the well-known 'heavy hitter' espionage writers." - Reedsy

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781777269692
Publisher:	Athena Book Tavern
Publication date:	01/07/2021
Pages:	428
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.19(d)

About the Author

Burnaby Hawkes (MD, BScN, MGA) is a novelist and former analyst for the NATO Association of Canada. His writings have appeared in Heater, The Raven Chronicles, ArabLit, and many other magazines and publications.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for The Haze

"A knotty and satisfying tale of action, drama, and secrets." - Kirkus Reviews

"Engrossing... Hawkes keeps the twists coming... Fans of superior post-Cold War spy fiction will be satisfied." - Publishers Weekly

"With its relentless pace, smart plot, and top-notch writing, The Haze makes for a most appealing and compelling read... The Haze is a must-read for fans of Spy Stories and is recommended without reservation." - Book Viral

"A thoroughly enjoyable contemporary spy novel recommended to fans of the well-known 'heavy hitter' espionage writers." - Reedsy

"Reading The Haze feels very much like going on a tour round the world and meeting diverse people, cultures, cities... The author's wordplay is quite fascinating. . . Also, to his credit is his in-depth knowledge of global geopolitics which he put to good use in giving the book a real life semblance. The Haze is a thrilling book that could make anyone's day." - Mary Jane Anderson, book blogger

From the Publisher

2021-05-20
A weathered CIA agent takes on a new mission in this debut spy novel featuring multinational intrigue.

Hawkes’ intricate tale is set in 2013, when Hector Kane, a CIA operative masquerading as a college professor, is leading a class trip to Pulau, a fictional island nation in Southeast Asia. For the last three years, Kane has been a professor at the American Institute of Middle Eastern Studies in Cairo, where his father once taught. The institute has a history with the Pentagon, which uses it as a cover to plant soldiers and spies in the Middle East. Even the university trip to Pulau, ostensibly for academic purposes, is a sham—an excuse for Kane to get close to Fatima Noman, one of the students. Fatima is the dean’s niece—but more importantly, her father, Ibrahim Noman, holds tremendous political sway in Egypt. In 2011, his organization, Haram, was a platform for political activism, earning him the sobriquet “Godfather of the Revolution.” Now, Ibrahim runs Tamarod, a political venture to depose the Muslim Brotherhood and redo the last election. Kane’s mission is called Operation C.O.R.O.N.A., the purpose of which is “to abort the Egyptian anti-democratic movement known as Tamarod.” Fatima is a key piece of the plan: Kane, working with Pulau operatives, has been instructed to inject Fatima with KV-19, a coronavirus that causes severe respiratory symptoms. With Fatima infected, the CIA’s Cairo office will use her health as a bargaining chip to force Ibrahim to abort Tamarod. But it’s uncertain if this is the true mission, and Kane must wade through the waters of intrigue and a throng of geopolitical jostling to make sense of the situation. Like a good spy, he knows there’s no one to trust—least of all, his CIA handlers and associates. Hawkes is a wonderfully vivid writer, using striking descriptions to illustrate character and place. “Her cheeks were stamped by butterfly freckles,” he writes of Fatima. The author’s passages about Pulau bring to life the island, with its “yacht-gorged harbor.” “Despite the tyranny of the haze,” Hawkes writes, “the city lived up to its reputation. Dazzling lights enlivening its streets and adorning its billion trees.” Given the author’s facility to make a story lively and urgent with clarity and details, the tale’s frequent digressions into the past become distracting, even frustrating. Hawkes is eager to establish Kane’s trajectory through the agency, rife with failures and frustrations. When Kane encounters a new character, the event often launches a backstory that tends to be too lengthy. With some characters, like Ibrahim, this backtracking is meant to lend the tale’s present the proper stakes. With others, it seems that Hawkes enjoys shading in the past even if it threatens the momentum of the fictional present. The novel’s swift and excellent prelude, for instance, shows what the author is capable of when his foot stays on the gas. Still, the story is enjoyably twisty, full of duplicity and deception, and portrays complicated characters who have competing allegiances and motives. The book also deftly depicts the frighteningly labyrinthine bureaucracy of the intelligence community.

A knotty and satisfying tale of action, drama, and secrets.

Kirkus Reviews

07/20/2020

Set in 2013, Hawkes’s engrossing debut introduces CIA agent Hector Kane, who, years after being fired without explanation, is welcomed back to the agency. Hector’s boss, George Moore (nicknamed the Cardinal because he “spent a year as a Jesuit monk novice before Langley entered his life”), who has managed to get the Senate to confirm him as the CIA director despite being considered the mastermind behind the intel that Iraq had WMDs, has a mission for Hector that involves the future of Egypt. Fifi Noman, the niece of the dean of the university where Hector was teaching between CIA stints, is the daughter of Ibrahim Noman, known as the Godfather of Egypt’s 2011 revolution. The Cardinal’s plan is for Hector to accompany Fifi and some others to the Southeast Asian country of Pulau, “a benevolent dictatorship,” expose Fifi to its underbelly, and “impress upon her pliant head the Kantian tenet that democracy was a categorical imperative.” Hawkes keeps the twists coming as Hector seeks to influence Fifi to promote the cause of democracy in Egypt. Fans of superior post–Cold War spy fiction will be satisfied. (Self-published)

Publishers Weekly