The Years Of The Locust

Terry Hayes, author of the #1 global bestseller I Am Pilgrim, returns with this terrifying and eagerly awaited instant bestseller. If, like Kane, you’re a Denied Access Area spy for the CIA, then boundaries have no meaning. Your function is to go in, do whatever is required, and get out again—by whatever means necessary. You know when to run, when to hide—and when to shoot. But some places don’t play by the rules. Some places are too dangerous, even for a man of Kane’s experience. The badlands where the borders of Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan meet are such a place—a place where violence is the only way to survive. Kane travels there to exfiltrate a man with vital information for the safety of the West—but instead he meets an adversary who will take the world to the brink of extinction. A frightening, clever, vicious man with blood on his hands and vengeance in his heart...

The Years of the Locust is a true story of intrigue, paranoia, murder and money set in the shimmering cities of America's South in the 1990s. It's the story of two men who never should have met, and when they did, one killed the other. There are walk-on parts for Don King, George Foreman, the FBI and a fallen NFL hero, yet it's the two central characters - sociopathic door-to-door-sales-king-turned-boxing-promoter Rick 'Elvis' Parker and his loyal, naive and ultimately incorruptible fighter Tim Anderson - that make this story extraordinary and unforgettable. It would be impossible to invent a man like Rick Parker, a freakishly fat ginger-haired giant who modelled his personal style on Elvis Presley and wanted to become the next Don King. Don himself told Rick how to do it - find a white man who could become the heavyweight champion of the world. Then Rick met Tim Anderson, a handsome, funny former baseball pro - was he the fighter to take Parker all the way? Rick left a trail of fixed fights and violent mayhem all across the South, but his dream stayed out of reach. By the end of his reign of terror Tim would be broke, poisoned and facing the hardest choice of all. And now Tim is doing life without parole in a state prison, and Rick - well, Rick's dead. By juxtaposing the lives of these two extraordinary men, The Years of the Locust turns a remarkable, riotous true-crime story into a profound examination of chance, choices and remorse - one that's scary, sad and blackly, bleakly funny.