- ISBN13: 9781416556183
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
A thrilling, epic novel about a young American man who is arrested for murder in Pakistan and narrowly escapes through the Himalayas, experiencing war, love, and revelation along the way.
Disillusioned with American life, Nicholas Sunder has spent months backpacking through South Asia, most recently in the company of a beautiful French woman he met in India. When the woman is found brutally murdered in the Tribal Areas of Pakistan, Nick is arrested and tortured by the Pakistani police, who are convinced he is the killer. Amazingly, Nick escapes their custody and heads off on foot through the steep mountains of Kashmir, the highest war zone on earth. Now a fugitive without papers, money, or a country that will welcome him, Nick is reduced to his most elemental human identity in an unforgiving mountainous landscape where his very survival is unlikely.
Nick’s fortune turns when he encounters an eccentric Kashmiri smuggler and his mysterious companion, Fidali. An enormous, nearly silent man, Fidali not only knows a hidden way through the mountains but makes a deep impression upon Nick through his sacrifices for others. In time, after barely surviving great violence, Nick reaches an idyllic mountain village in Indian-occupied Kashmir, where he is drawn to Aysha, a remarkable woman unlike any he has ever met, who operates a medical clinic in the remote region. It is there he will confront the divide between Islam and the West and be forced to ponder how he has reached such a place — forced to consider, in other words, Fidali’s way.
Drawn from the author’s own experiences trekking through Asia, Fidali’s Way brims with George Mastras’s deep knowledge of the Himalayan region. He has walked the lands, climbed the mountains, and met the diverse peoples who call the high Himalayas their home. Few American authors have traveled as extensively as Mastras has through these remote, dangerous, and unstable places, and his personal insight is evident on every page. Not only a powerful suspense story, Fidali’s Way is a timely exploration of a politically complex region and a meditation on some of the most important issues of our time: the relationship between Islam and the West, the ruthlessness of fanatical religion, and the redemptive power of pure faith.
Sweeping in its scope and moral complexity, Fidali’s Way brings forth a story that only an ambitious, large-hearted novel can tell and introduces George Mastras as a major new American novelist.
Buy This book from Amazon Now! Shipping in Pakistan & Round the world available Click Fidali’s Way: A Novel to buy now.
About the Author
I could have sworn that throwing over one’s hard earned career in favor of hitchhiking aimlessly around Southeast Asia in search of one’s “identity” went out along with the hippies, but nonetheless, Nick Saunders does so, clearly post 2001. The book is overtly politicized to a single Islamic viewpoint (“Indian occupied Kashmir”), anti-American in more than a few places […]
A better written, Islamic version of Rapture literature, this book is really a religious tract and should be categorized as such.
Rating: 2 / 5
I’ve realized that almost all of my Vine reviews are negative. The shortfall between what I’d choose on my own and what I’m given to choose from is the obvious source of this, but I still find it depressing.
I wanted to love this book (if only so I could write a positive review) but I found it to resemble a bad undergrad writing assignment — adjectives and adverbs taking over the prose and the gross used as a stand-in for the vivid. If you want a book set in that part of the world, try Lie Down With Lions, which gives you truly vivid settings and good character development.
Rating: 2 / 5
Let me cut to the chase: I highly recommend this book.
I liked this book for many reasons on many levels. In my view this book was a combination of many other books and topics I am interested and Mastras weaves his tale combining: current events, geography, mystery, and travel narrative.
The book is extremely topically with issues of South and Central Asia. With issues about India and Pakistan and the war on terror. Just look at what recently happened in Bombay.
I liked how the geography of the Hindu Kush and South Asia in general was in my mind a character in this novel.
I am a fan of travel narratives and have personally been on the cusp of backbacking through Asia, and have been to Asia enough times to like the whole travel and travel narrative aspect of this book. Like the first 1/3 of the novel the beach.
Plus through in a little of Midnight Express and the Broken Down Palace…those of us who do travel to far away places have all wondered and feared what would happen if we were jailed or accused of a crime in a place like Pakistan etc.
It is not often I read a book and think about who would play who in the movie version, but this book will be a great film.
This book is a good read and worth your time.
Rating: 4 / 5
Fidali’s Way is an intelligent, fast-paced, international thriller that grabs you at the first page and doesn’t let go until the finish. Exhausted, you’ll set it aside but it will stay with you for days. I grabbed this book because of my love for adventure stories and the added bonus that George Mastras was the writer. I expected an adventure along the lines of Spy on the Roof of the World and indeed, traveling through the Himalaya without proper clothing or adequate food is an adventure in itself. But Fidali’s Way is much more than just an adventure book.
Nick Sunder is an American backpacker, who realized a bit late that the life he was living was financially sound, but disturbing to him as a human being. He embarks on an amazing backpacking trip through Asia, getting to know himself and meeting other restless souls along the way. When his French lover is found murdered in Pakistan Nick is forced to rely on his wits, with desperation as his fuel to get as far from Pakistani authorities as possible. His travel partners, Ghulmar and Fidali take him on a grueling trip across the border to a village in Kashmir. Nick stays on as an aid worker in the clinic operated by the beautiful intelligent Aysha. Its the perfect place to hide and to find redemption. But the village of Gilkamosh is not an idyllic mountain retreat. Nick’s new life is centered in a village filled with conflict that can only end in violence.
The conflict between Hindu and Muslims has a long and complicated history. It is difficult to understand the willingness to become a martyr on behalf of any cause. Mastras takes you along on this difficult journey and you can feel the intensity of belief. Clearly the author writes with the knowledge of someone who has experienced Asia first hand and understands the conflict. By viewing this world through Nick Sunder’s eyes, we gain a better understanding.
Fidali’s Way is a rich, dramatic, intense thriller. Finely written and researched. If you love adventure books, you will not be disappointed. Highly recommended.
Rating: 4 / 5
A marvelous book I was sorry to finish. A story that’s stayed with me, with wonderful believable characters: human and flawed. Beautifully written with a great understanding of the people and region. Also, as someone else wrote, a fine compliment to Three Cups of Tea.
I’m coping with significant pre-surgery pain and the story and characters took me out of myself while waiting in doctor’s offices and in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep – and found myself looking forward to reading.
My husband and I enjoy and read totally different books – but we both found great pleasure and satisfaction in the pages of Fidali’s Way.
Rating: 5 / 5