An Expensive Education - Paperback

by Nick McDonell (Author)

A young man goes from Ivy League to international intrigue: "A spy who could have easily walked off the pages of le Carré's better works."--Publishers Weekly

Mike Teak has a classic Harvard profile. He's a twenty-five-year-old scholar/athlete from an upper-class family who was recruited by his godfather to work for a U.S. intelligence agency. On a covert mission in a Somali village, he delivers cash and cell phones to Hatashil, a legendary orphan warrior turned rebel leader. It's a routine assignment until, minutes after they meet, the village is decimated by a missile assault, and although Mike escapes, his life is changed forever.

Echoing across continents, the assault disrupts professor Susan Lowell, who has just won a Pulitzer Prize for her book celebrating Hatashil. Also shaken is Lowell's student, David Ayan, who was born in the targeted village, a world away from Harvard's most exclusive final club, the Porcellian, which is courting him and Jane, the smart, risk-taking daughter of East Coast money who's sleeping with him. David Ayan struggles with his identity and Susan Lowell struggles against rumors about her relationship with Hatashil, who has been accused of ordering the village massacre. But it is Mike Teak who faces the most dangerous struggle--because when he discovers a horrific conspiracy, he immediately realizes that he has become expendable, with nowhere to run and no one to trust.

"It's clear this young writer has only begun to show where his prodigious storytelling will take us." --People

"Smart and sexy." --The Washington Post

"Tempered by some hilarious insider glimpses of Harvard life, An Expensive Education is terrific, a thriller noir that's difficult to put down or forget." --Entertainment Weekly (A-)

Author Biography

Nick McDonell was born in 1984 in New York City. He is the author of two previous novels, Twelve and The Third Brother, and has reported for Harper's and Time from Sudan and Iraq.