WINNER OF THE 2024 JOYCE CAROL OATES PRIZE โข A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITOR'S CHOICE
โข WASHINGTON POST BEST FICTION OF 2023 โข From the award-winning, bestselling author of Billy Lynnโs Long Halftime Walk comes a brilliant and propulsive new novel about greed, power, and American complicity set in Haiti
"An engrossing, psychologically complex and politically astute novel." โThe New York Times
Haiti, 1991. When a violent coup dโรฉtat leads to the fall of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, American expat Matt Amaker is forced to abandon his idyllic, beachfront scuba business. With the rise of a brutal military dictatorship and an international embargo threatening to destroy even the countryโs most powerful players, some are looking to gain an advantage in the chaosโand others are just looking to make it through another day.
Desperate for moneyโand survivalโMatt teams up with his best friend and business partner Alix Variel, the adventurous only son of a socially prominent Haitian family. They set their sights on legendary shipwrecks that have been rumored to contain priceless treasures off a remote section of Haitiโs southern coast. Their ambition and exploration of these disastrous wrecks come with a cascade of ill-fated incidentsโone that involves Misha, Alixโs erudite sister, who stumbles onto an arms-trafficking ring masquerading as a U.S. government humanitarian aid office, and rookie CIA case officer Audrey OโDonnell, who finds herself doing clandestine work on an assignment that proves to be more difficult and dubious than she could have possibly imagined.
Devil Makes Threeโs depiction of blood politics, the machinations of power, and a country in the midst of upheaval is urgently and insistently resonant. This new novel is sure to cement Ben Fountainโs reputation as one of the twenty-first centuryโs boldest and most perceptive writers.