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A man’s unconventional boss faces terrorism charges after being kidnapped in this thriller set in the 2000s.

Ritchie Swift and his eccentric philanthropist boss, Billy Miller, fly to Cairo to visit an “alleged chamber beneath the Sphinx.” En route, jihadi terrorists kidnap them and threaten to behead them. The story’s timeline veers between the recent past when Ritchie was first hired to the present-day kidnapping and its subsequent fallout. Shortly after being hired at Miller’s media conglomerate, Ritchie became Miller’s personal assistant and often dealt with his boss’s righteous determination to solve the world’s ills. In a letter intended for unnamed influential people, for example, Miller demanded that they attend to the ailing planet’s many problems and “realize the promise of the West—an end to hunger, poverty, climate change, and preventable disease.” Ritchie was promoted to VP of programming under Miller’s tutelage and worked on a couple of projects that Miller’s company was spearheading, including McSnoop. McSnoop was, essentially, a “See something, say something” hotline where everyday citizens could report instances of terrorism. McSnoop proved to be successful in “a sustained letup in terrorist activity,” and Ritchie assumed his kidnapping was related to the project’s success. Back in the story’s present day, Ritchie and Miller are freed from their kidnappers, and Miller faces new, considerable obstacles. The truth is a fascinating knot readers will enjoy untangling. The overstuffed plot often seems like a vehicle for the author to discuss a myriad of sociopolitical issues and cultural references, from pop art and poverty to Hurricane Katrina. Wills’ prose, however, is descriptive and detailed—“He reeked of cash, yet he had that cheap bottled suntan glow and a deeper, complementary russet shade to his perfectly cut hair, which came to a widow’s peak above a heavily lined brow”—a fun accompaniment to this twisty storyline.

An ambitious undertaking with a thorny plot.