A.M. Khalifa

A.M. Khalifa is an Egyptian author based in Rome, and the only Egyptian writing commercial espionage thrillers in English. His international thrillers are set only in places he knows first-hand. Raised in a diplomatic corps family, he has lived and worked in more than fifteen countries, and he never writes about a place he hasn’t been. That itinerant upbringing gave him a fluency in other cultures, and a wariness of easy answers, that runs through all of his work.

His fiction breaches cultural taboos. Espionage, counterintelligence, religious fanaticism, terrorism and gender inequity are his territory, but his real subject is people: ordinary men and women pushed to the edge by loss, loyalty and the hunger for justice. His villains are rarely what they seem, and his heroes are rarely spotless.

His debut novel, Terminal Rage (2013), follows a retired FBI hostage negotiator drawn back into service when a man posing as an Arab prince seizes a Manhattan tower and asks for him by name. Booklist gave it a starred review, calling it “a rousing cat-and-mouse game between two broken men.” Publishers Weekly praised it as “dizzying, intricate, and immensely entertaining,” and Foreword Clarion Reviews rated it five out of five. Terminal Rage has sold more than 500,000 copies. It is published in Italian as Rabbia Letale (Mavenhill, translated by Raffaella Vitangeli) and in Danish by Forlaget Fioranello, with Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish rights sold and Arabic ebook and audiobook rights sold to Arabookverse, and the English audiobook is narrated by Audie Award winner Scott Brick.

Paper Cut Hearts (2014), a collection of nine suspenseful, sensual stories that range from London and Rome to Cairo, New York and Silicon Valley, was a finalist in the Foreword INDIES Book Awards. An updated 2027 edition is now available.

He came to fiction from film. A partner in a film production company, he had his first job on a set on Syriana, the Warner Bros. film written and directed by Stephen Gaghan and produced by George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh, and he has since advised filmmakers including Ridley Scott.

His short story The Ark, a science fiction thriller about two strangers sent to kill the same woman, is also narrated by Scott Brick, and it took him from the page to the screen. Khalifa wrote the story and screenplay for the 2021 short film, directed by Benjamin South and produced at the New York Film Academy. It was an Official Selection at five international film festivals, including LA Shorts and HollyShorts.

Alongside his fiction, Khalifa writes essays on publishing and technology, most recently on artificial intelligence and what it means for authors. Publishers Weekly interviewed him for its PW Select feature, “More Than Just a Book.”

Trilingual, he lives in Rome, where he is completing Terminal Deception, the next novel in the Terminal Rage series.

An Egyptian spy novelist writing in English →