Come Home

Set during the Arab Spring in 2011, this improbable thriller from bestseller Gussin (And Then There Was One) focuses on a family: Ahmed Masud, an Egyptian who came to the U.S. as a surgical resident in 1996; the wife he adores, Nicole Nelson, his partner in their Philadelphia plastic surgery practice; and their bright five-year-old son, Alex. One day, during Ahmed’s regular Sunday phone call to his father and siblings in Giza, his father insists that he return to Egypt, with Alex, to help deal with a crisis resulting from the popular revolt against President Mubarak, whose son is a close family friend. This demand causes a dramatic personality change in Ahmed: he insists that Alex be enrolled in an Islamic school, and he becomes verbally and physically abusive to Nicole. Conveniently, Nicole’s twin sister, a top pharmaceutical company executive, hears from her boss that he happened to see Ahmed and Alex boarding a private jet. Nicole sets out on a desperate quest to rescue Alex as a power struggle consumes the larger Masud family. Readers should be prepared for plot contrivances and thin characterizations. (Nov.)