"Riveting . . . Well-written and highly compelling."--Wall Street
Journal
"Truly thrilling. Daniel Levin brilliantly conveys both the menace and
the evil of Middle Eastern intrigue, and some victories of human
kindness over cruelty and despair."--Daniel Kahneman, New York Times
bestselling author of Thinking, Fast and Slow
Daniel Levin was in his New York office when he got a call from an
acquaintance with an urgent, cryptic request to meet in Paris. A young
man had gone missing in Syria. No government, embassy, or intelligence
agency would help. Could he? Would he? So begins a suspenseful,
shocking, and at times brutal true story of one man's search to find a
missing person in Syria over twenty tense days. Levin, a lawyer turned
armed-conflict negotiator, chases leads throughout the Middle East,
meeting with powerful sheikhs, drug lords, and sex traffickers in his
pursuit of the truth.
In Proof of Life, Levin dives deep into the shadows--an underground
industry of war where everything is for sale, including arms, drugs, and
even people. He offers a fascinating study of how people use leverage to
get what they want from one another and of a place where no one does a
favor without wanting something in return, whether it's immediately or
years down the road.
A fast-paced thriller wrapped in a memoir, Proof of Life is a
cinematic must-read by an author with access to a world that usually
remains hidden.
