Media Center: ‘Unmanned’ by Dan Fesperman

Media Center: ‘Unmanned’ by Dan Fesperman

WHO: Dan Fesperman

WHAT: UNMANNED, a novel

WHEN: Published by Knopf August 13, 2014

WHERE: Set mostly in the Nevada desert.

WHY: “This timely thriller…
evokes wonder as well as chills.

“Capt. Darwin Cole, a Predator drone pilot comfortably ensconced at Nevada’s Creech Air Force Base, discovers too late that children have entered his target area in eastern Afghanistan. The missile strike leaves two children dead, and Cole, devastated, spends a year in self-abnegating seclusion in the Nevada desert…
“Journalist Keira Lyttle finds Cole and persuades him to help her and two of her colleagues investigate the high-level misuse of government drones by a rogue CIA officer. As Cole and the reporters follow a trail through ex-CIA agents, intelligence contractors, and military technocrats, Fesperman delineates the capabilities of modern drone aircraft in details that evoke wonder as well as chills at their disturbing implications for personal privacy…The technical information will keep readers turning the pages up to the rousing conclusion.” —PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

“Fesperman has delivered an unlikely thriller nuanced with moral ambiguity. Well-written and dense with complicity, this is an action-packed glimpse of intrusive technology in which the good guys never have clear moral standing. A timely thriller that brings drone warfare to the streets of America.” —KIRKUS REVIEWS

“Another winner from the author of
The Arms Maker of Berlin and The Double Game.”
—David Pitt, BOOKLIST

Jacket photoFrom the beginning of the book: Thirty seconds to impact. On the video display, Captain Darwin Cole watches black crosshairs quiver on a mud rooftop. He doesn’t budge the stick and rudder. No piloting needed now. All that matters is the missile, which Airman Zach Lewis guides by laser from a seat to Cole’s immediate right. Ten seconds pass while Cole wiggles his toes, numb from the air-conditioning. No one speaks into their headsets. Even the chatter screen is calm, as if everyone in their viewing audience was holding his breath. It is 3:50 a.m., and Cole’s sense of detachment is so profound that he has to remind himself this is not a game, not a drill. It is death in motion, as real as it gets, and for the moment he is reality’s instrument of choice, the one whose name will go on the dotted line now and forevermore. His kill.

Media Resources:
About the book | About the author | Download the jacket | Download the author photo

Publicist for this title: Erinn Hartman | 212-572-2345 | ehartman@penguinrandomhouse.com