Purchase
Knopf
August 2014
On Sale: July 29, 2014
456 pages
ISBN: 0385349602
EAN: 9780385349604
Kindle: B00IBZ3YXG
Hardcover / e-Book
Add to Wish List
Mystery | Suspense
October 1962. The Soviet Union has smuggled missiles into Cuba. Kennedy and Khrushchev are in the midst of a military face-off that could lead to nuclear conflagration. Warships and submarines are on the move. Planes are in the air. Troops are at the ready. Both leaders are surrounded by advisers clamoring for war. The only way for the two leaders to negotiate safely is to open a βback channelββa surreptitious path of communication hidden from their own people. They need a clandestine emissary nobody would ever suspect. If the secret gets out, her life will be at risk . . . but theyβre careful not to tell her that.
Stephen L. Carterβs gripping new novel, Back Channel, is a brilliant amalgam of fact and fictionβa suspenseful retelling of the Cuban Missile Crisis, in which the fate of the world rests unexpectedly on the shoulders of a young college student.
On the island of Curaçao, a visiting Soviet chess champion whispers state secrets to an American acquaintance.
In the Atlantic Ocean, a freighter struggles through a squall while trying to avoid surveillance.
And in Ithaca, New York, Margo Jensen, one of the few black women at Cornell, is asked to go to Eastern Europe to babysit a madman.
As the clock ticks toward World War III, Margo undertakes her harrowing journey. Pursued by the hawks on both sides, protected by nothing but her own ingenuity and courage, Margo is drawn ever more deeply into the crossfireβand into her own familyβs hidden past.
 Media BuzzWeekend Edition Saturday - July 26, 2014
| 
© 2003-2026