George Young is a devoted family man and a Gulf War veteran. After a hometown business venture flops, George accepts work overseas as a contracted civilian interrogator for the U.S. government at Omega, a secret holding facility for suspected terrorists.
The work pays well, but his personal life is crumbling. His wife, with whom he is forbidden to talk about his work, is becoming more and more enamored of gin and tonic. Worse, during a "routine" interrogation, a detainee dies in George's hands. Frightened and confused, the detainee repeatedly asks, "Who are you?" just before dying. These words echo throughout the novel and send George on a painful journey of self-interrogation and discovery. In order to defend his country and his family, must George betray his humanity?
Portray[s] with excruciating, chilling effect the actions of men operating in extreme circumstances when the usual rules of war are absent. A short novel but powerful in its reach, this work...resounds with literary merit and bears the hallmarks of a thriller sure to fly off the shelf.
Charles Holdefer's two previous novels were well received satires: Apologies for Big Rod (1997) and Nice (2001). In The Contractor, he explores a totally new terrain. He lives in France and teaches in the English department of the University of Poitiers and, for the last nine summers, at the University of Iowa's Summer Writing Festival.
