Omar Shahid Hamid’s Betrayal mixes crime thriller with a love story

Omar Shahid Hamid is a real life counter terrorism expert, therefore, it should not come as a surprise that when he started dabbling with writing he picked the crime thriller genre.

All of his novels are known to have a pinch of news headlines that he turns into page turning thrillers. Betrayal is his fifth book which in addition to this known thriller style has the addition of a love story in the mix as well.

The key plot of the book revolves around the capture of an Indian spy by Pakistan and during his interrogation he reveals the presence of a mole so well placed in the hierarchy that the consequences can be catastrophic for the country. This revelation sends a red alert through all power segments resulting in an inter-agency counter intelligence conference led by the national security adviser (NSA), Sameer Ali Khan, to find the said mole. This leads to the unfolding of a drama that encompasses the grey waters of South Asian politics that unfold beyond the borders of the two arch rivals.

Sameer Ali Khan is the upright protagonist whose entry into the service has its own layered backstory that combines his father’s professional and personal choice and the consequent breakup with his Aleena Farooq.

He gets national and international recognition for his professional acumen and honesty. While serving as the Inspector General of Balochistan, he became known for bringing stability to the province, and during that tenure lost his wife and daughter to a terrorist attack. Sameer, further invested himself in his work as a coping mechanism for his grief and ended up as Pakistan’s NSA.

A chance meeting with a school time friend after giving a thrashing to the Prime Minister’s close aide against whom his team is investigating corruption charges, Sameer meets his long lost sweetheart, Aleena (who herself is now a successful business woman in the fashion industry in Paris) at a reunion party, rekindling their relationship. Through this storyline, Hamid takes us through the individual backstories of these two characters, what led to their initial breakup and the role social class played.

Parallel to this love story, the hunt for the mole is ongoing, which ends up in the hands of a character, readers of Hamid’s previous books would be familiar with, Constantine D’Souza. When he takes some concerning call transcripts to his boss, he is asked to shut down the investigation as it points to an unlikely suspect. However, the army representative on this inter-agency collaboration, General Shehram gives him a personal task to follow up which lands D’Souza in London, following Sameer and Aleena.

While the two are just at the point of daring to imagine a future for themselves a hidden aspect of Aleena’s past catches up with them in the shape of a son, who she had given up at birth. This personal secret ends up being used in the murky waters of Pakistan — India spy game that leaves Sameer once again questioning her motives and loyalty to him. As the events unfold Sameer’s own loyalty towards the country comes into question.

In order to avoid any spoilers I’ll let you find the answers to the multifaceted question of betrayal on your own.

Through these two intertwined plot lines Hamid has quite skillfully highlighted the complexities of politics be it local, regional or international; and how all the various vested interests are engaged in a never ending game of chess many a times sacrificing their own for what they deem to be a more important short or long term goal. The following line from the last chapter sums it up pretty well.

“We’re all the same. This is cold war. There’s no room for morality here.”

Given the complicated storylines, unlike his previous four books the characters from the news headlines are presented in a more fictionalized manner with minimum of resemblance. Betrayal like the other thrillers by the author is a page turner with a good chunk of surprises thrown in. If our filmmakers make a little effort to get out of the rut of the over exhausted stories they keep going back to, this book along with others from our authors will be a much needed addition to visual storytelling.

Originally published at https://pk.mashable.com on August 21, 2021.