The Amateur American
A Novel
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
Sometimes the hardest boundaries to see . . .are the ones you’ve already crossed.
Twenty-nine-year-old Jeffrey Delanne is teaching English in France but having a tough time stretching his measly paycheck one month to the next. When he’s not worrying about his bar tab, he’s struggling with the language, trying to justify his country’s “imperialist” actions to every French person in sight, and wondering just what the hell he’s doing abroad.
Desperate for a few quick euros, Jeffrey takes on some translating work for an eccentric Arab businessman. But the job turns ugly, and Jeffrey is forced to do things he never thought himself capable of, torn among guilt, a host of criminal impulses, and a haunting paranoia he’d never known back home.
But maybe it’s not just paranoia. Soon Jeffrey’s colleagues, his students, and even the women in his life begin hinting at dark secrets, and Jeffrey starts to suspect that he’s been lured into a brutal game whose implications go far beyond this unassuming corner of the world.
Now his life may depend on his willingness to transform himself into something–someone–who’ll stop at nothing to survive.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Elmore's less than suspenseful thriller debut opens with a French news report dated March 23, 2003, describing the manhunt for Jeffrey Delanne. An American, Delanne is suspected of having had a hand in the murders of two federal agents as well as the poisoning death of the former head of the school where Delanne worked as a teaching assistant in Lourange, France. The action then flashes back three weeks to relate how Delanne became a patsy for shadowy conspirators with murky motives. The cash-strapped TA agrees to serve as a translator for an elderly Arab entrepreneur, who turns out to want Delanne's help in getting information out of a British man he's holding hostage. Despite this frightening experience, Delanne is unable to avoid a second assignment that crosses the line between interpreter and torturer. Too easily manipulated, Delanne is more apt to make readers impatient than gain their sympathy.
