Ja sam hodočasnik

The novel I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes—published in Croatia in 2018—is one of the most acclaimed works in the contemporary spy-detective genre. The story follows a covert agent, formerly the head of an elite, invisible secret service unit within the US intelligence community, who retired following a series of personal and professional traumas and now lives under the alias "Pilgrim." His attempt at a quiet life is interrupted when a New York detective asks for his help in solving a mysterious murder at a cheap Manhattan hotel—a crime committed using precise instructions from a forensic science book written by Pilgrim himself. Meanwhile, a terrifying threat is emerging in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East: a religious extremist known as "the Saracen" is developing a deadly, genetically modified smallpox virus with the aim of wiping out Western civilization. Pilgrim is recruited once more to track down this elusive enemy in a race against time that takes him from the US and Europe to Turkey and Afghanistan. Hayes masterfully intertwines multiple narrative threads, creating a multi-layered, richly detailed, and dynamic thriller filled with unexpected twists.