Glimpses of hindsight add to the sense that we’re not alone on our read. The novel is indeed a pilgrimage, a collection of journeys – there’s the journey that leads the Pilgrim to abandon his identity and take on this quest there’s the story of the Saracen’s path to international terrorism, no less personally treated there’s also the journey of the narrator and author – information is fed to us both subjectively and objectively. Both men are supported by a network of aides, almost all secret, but the trail that leads one man to hunt another is tortured by dead ends, false leads, sacrifice, courage and treachery. It is driven by the stories of a large number of interlocking, interweaving lives, led by the Pilgrim and the man that has become his mission in life to catch before he wreaks armageddon on the world, the Saracen. I Am Pilgrim is a spy thriller but it is so much more than that. So, giving as little away as possible, here are just a few of the reasons why I Am Pilgrim is one of my reads of the year. In fact, I met the editor at the Crime in the Court event in London on 4 July and he did mention that there had been talk of a ‘Director’s Cut’ – much had been chopped. Normally, such a lengthy book can be quite a commitment to read but I would have happily devoured a book twice its length. Even more extraordinary is that this is a novel of 700 pages. From the very first to the very last page, I was utterly enthralled by this astonishing novel, a debut, no less. I picked it up knowing very little other than that it was not my usual sort of read at all – a spy thriller beginning with a gruesome crime scene – but I was assured that I should put all my preconceptions to one side and jump onboard and hang on. I Am Pilgrim is a book that I don’t want to tell you too much about.
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