American Hostage: A Memoir of a Journalist Kidnapped in Iraq and the Remarkable Battle to Win His Release

Moving and suspenseful, this account of a journalist's ordeal as a captive in Iraq recounts the machinations behind a delicate hostage situation. Documentary filmmakers Garen and Carleton went to Iraq in 2003 to investigate reports of looting at archeological sites. Near the end of their project, Carleton returned to New York City, leaving Garen to complete the final stages of filming in the southern city of Nasiriyah. Everything seemed to be wrapping up smoothly until, two days before his scheduled return to America, Garen was identified as a foreigner in a crowded marketplace, and he and his Iraqi translator were kidnapped by a local Shi'ite group. Garen's first-person account of their time in captivity alternates chapters with Carleton's story of how friends and family rallied at home and abroad to jump-start a rescue effort, even before the FBI got on the case. Carleton details the effort's minute-by-minute reversals and its many risky decisions in crisp, straightforward prose that will soon have readers commiserating with her highs and lows. For his part, Garen recalls his fear, anger and confusion with clarity and immediacy, never demonizing his captors yet never condoning their acts. One of the book's great pleasures is the description of his friendship with his translator, Amir, an educated, secular Muslim. Even readers who followed the story in the newspapers will find much that is new since so many of the crucial negotiations happened off the front page. And with a romantic subplot humming through the tension, this story is made for the silver screen. Agent, Richard Abate . (Oct.)