The Betrayers

Two men meet on a park bench in Jerusalem: a politician, on the eve of a controversial stand against his government, and a Mossad agent, sent to dissuade him with the threat of blackmail. Neither backs down. Escaping the furore he's unleashed, the politician and his lover head to Crimea and a resort on the Black Sea to lie low. But the fierce battle between political principles and personal loyalties has followed them to this faded Russian backwater, and a shocking encounter awaits them. In its depiction of a man whose principles are tested to the utmost extremes, The Betrayers cuts to the very heart of our troubled times. The Magic of fiction is that it is deeply caring about imaginary strangers, and Bezmozgis is a magician.' Aleksandar Hemon, author of The Lazarus Project 'This unforgettable novel squanders no words in its brilliant, deft depictions of love, of memory, of compassion - and, ultimately, despite its title, of loyalty.' Edith Pearlman, finalist for the National Book Award for Binocular Vision 'In this taut, fierce, forensically insightful novel, David Bezmozgis explores the frictions between goodness and kindness, public and private virtue, forgiveness and forgetting. Compulsive and profound.' A. D. Miller, Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Snowdrops