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Believers: Love and Death in Tehran
Thirty years have passed since a shattered Nilufar Hartman, pregnant and betrayed, fled Iran. She barely got out alive, carrying her deepest secrets of love and tragedy.
Nilufar had arrived in Tehran in November 1979 to take a job as a junior American diplomat at the U.S. Embassy. She had instead spent nine years as an American spy, reporting from deep inside the new Islamic Republic as it collapsed into extremism, civil strife, and war. After her return to America, she chose a quiet university life and swore she would never again do Washington’s bidding.
Her tranquility is upended by a plea from Alan Porter, the man who had sent her to Tehran in 1979. Porter tells her about a plot by colluding American and Iranian extremists to provoke a war between the two countries. He says she is the only person who can stop it.
Nilufar is reluctant to go back to Iran, vividly recalling the agony of her years under cover, when she posed as a believer, the devout and revolutionary “Massoumeh”. She can never forget the horrific end to her mission when her lover and the father of her unborn child were murdered.
A commitment to serve the United States, which never died inside her, propels her back into the maelstrom. Nilufar adopts another covert identity and returns to Iran to end the parallel conspiracies intent on sparking a conflict. While she is working in Tehran, Porter must stop the Americans ready to promote their private agendas through mass murder. Nilufar must evade Iran’s vicious secret police, deliver a message from America, convince a patriotic but suspicious group of Iranians to act, and once more manage a narrow escape from both Iran and her own memories.
Nilufar had arrived in Tehran in November 1979 to take a job as a junior American diplomat at the U.S. Embassy. She had instead spent nine years as an American spy, reporting from deep inside the new Islamic Republic as it collapsed into extremism, civil strife, and war. After her return to America, she chose a quiet university life and swore she would never again do Washington’s bidding.
Her tranquility is upended by a plea from Alan Porter, the man who had sent her to Tehran in 1979. Porter tells her about a plot by colluding American and Iranian extremists to provoke a war between the two countries. He says she is the only person who can stop it.
Nilufar is reluctant to go back to Iran, vividly recalling the agony of her years under cover, when she posed as a believer, the devout and revolutionary “Massoumeh”. She can never forget the horrific end to her mission when her lover and the father of her unborn child were murdered.
A commitment to serve the United States, which never died inside her, propels her back into the maelstrom. Nilufar adopts another covert identity and returns to Iran to end the parallel conspiracies intent on sparking a conflict. While she is working in Tehran, Porter must stop the Americans ready to promote their private agendas through mass murder. Nilufar must evade Iran’s vicious secret police, deliver a message from America, convince a patriotic but suspicious group of Iranians to act, and once more manage a narrow escape from both Iran and her own memories.
359 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 29, 2020
About the author
Marc Grossman
1 bookThere is more than one author in the Goodreads catalog with this name. This entry is for Marc ^4 Grossman.
MARC GROSSMAN is a Vice Chair of The Cohen Group in Washington, DC. Ambassador Grossman was a career Foreign Service Officer from 1976 to 2005. He served as the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, the Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, and as U.S. Ambassador to Turkey. From 2011 to 2012, Ambassador Grossman was recalled to the State Department to be the U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. He has a BA from the University of California Santa Barbara and an MSc. from the London School of Economics and Political Science. JOHN LIMBERT served 34 years in the American Foreign Service, mostly in the Middle East and Islamic Africa. His postings included Iran, Iraq, Sudan, and Algeria. He was ambassador to Mauritania and deputy assistant secretary of state responsible for Iran. After retiring from the State Department, he was Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the U.S. Naval Academy, where he taught until retiring in 2018. A Washington, D.C native, he attended D.C. public schools and earned his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from Harvard University, the last degree in History and Middle Eastern Studies. Before joining the Foreign Service, he taught in Iran as a Peace Corps volunteer in Kurdistan Province and as an instructor at Shiraz University. He has written widely on Middle Eastern subjects, including the books Iran at War with History, Shiraz in the Age of Hafez, and Negotiating with Iran: Wrestling the Ghosts of History. He was among the last American diplomats to serve in Tehran. He earned the Department of State s Award for Valor, after spending fourteen months as hostage in Iran. He and his wife, the former Parvaneh Tabibzadeh, live in New York City. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
MARC GROSSMAN is a Vice Chair of The Cohen Group in Washington, DC. Ambassador Grossman was a career Foreign Service Officer from 1976 to 2005. He served as the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, the Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, and as U.S. Ambassador to Turkey. From 2011 to 2012, Ambassador Grossman was recalled to the State Department to be the U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. He has a BA from the University of California Santa Barbara and an MSc. from the London School of Economics and Political Science. JOHN LIMBERT served 34 years in the American Foreign Service, mostly in the Middle East and Islamic Africa. His postings included Iran, Iraq, Sudan, and Algeria. He was ambassador to Mauritania and deputy assistant secretary of state responsible for Iran. After retiring from the State Department, he was Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the U.S. Naval Academy, where he taught until retiring in 2018. A Washington, D.C native, he attended D.C. public schools and earned his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from Harvard University, the last degree in History and Middle Eastern Studies. Before joining the Foreign Service, he taught in Iran as a Peace Corps volunteer in Kurdistan Province and as an instructor at Shiraz University. He has written widely on Middle Eastern subjects, including the books Iran at War with History, Shiraz in the Age of Hafez, and Negotiating with Iran: Wrestling the Ghosts of History. He was among the last American diplomats to serve in Tehran. He earned the Department of State s Award for Valor, after spending fourteen months as hostage in Iran. He and his wife, the former Parvaneh Tabibzadeh, live in New York City. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 24, 2020
A storyteller’s point of view to teach history
We Americans like to simplify history, breaking everything down into black and white, good and evil. But nothing is ever that simple. We need stories like this one to make the richness of emotions and intentions clear.
I lived in Tehran for two-and-a-half years before this story begins. I recognized the people, places, and events of this story. Since then, I’ve lived and worked in ten other countries. Iran was special, not simply because it was my first foreign living experience, but because there is no other place on earth quite like it. This story will lead the reader to understanding that, perhaps.
We Americans like to simplify history, breaking everything down into black and white, good and evil. But nothing is ever that simple. We need stories like this one to make the richness of emotions and intentions clear.
I lived in Tehran for two-and-a-half years before this story begins. I recognized the people, places, and events of this story. Since then, I’ve lived and worked in ten other countries. Iran was special, not simply because it was my first foreign living experience, but because there is no other place on earth quite like it. This story will lead the reader to understanding that, perhaps.
September 18, 2020
an intelligent thriller. i felt like i was in Iran.
October 20, 2020
This is a suspenseful tale mixed with some haunting images
I know the authors and can see that their professional experiences made this fiction come alive. This is a good read
I know the authors and can see that their professional experiences made this fiction come alive. This is a good read
January 19, 2021
This novel reads like an insider's report of an American spy's activities in Iran during the months following the overthrow of Shah, the take over of the US embassy and the years immediately after. Because the two authors are diplomatic professionals their writing is sometimes a bit stilted but the book has details that come across as realistic and ultimately insert a great deal of excitement and information that other writers may not have. The main characters are quite believable as are the event descriptions. In effect, this novel provides a wealth of information about internal political conflicts in the Iranian regime and makes it clear that the US approach to it has been simplistic, often misguided, and frequently based on poor information. While given the book market place this novel is not likely to become a best seller, I'd highly recommend it to anyone wanting to get an "inside" view of Iran and how the US interacts with it.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews