THE BLUE-COLLAR LINGUIST

Jacob Suarez never made it past high school, and nobody ever called him smart. He works the counter of a Maryland hardware store, where he can quietly speak fifty languages. He has never told anyone the number. He believes counting them is how you lose them.

Then a customer who keeps buying screwdrivers hears him switch from French to Mandarin to Aramaic in under ten minutes, and the life Jacob worked so hard to keep small is over.

Recruited into the intelligence world, Jacob learns that a man who hears what others hide is worth killing for, and worth owning. A hidden network is moving secrets through the voices of ordinary people. Someone has been watching him since before he was born. And the voice that finally speaks his name from the dark was never human.

In a story of family secrets, buried archives, and a machine built to predict people, Jacob must decide what to do with a gift everyone else wants to control.

A bilingual-flavored espionage thriller for readers of Daniel Silva, Mick Herron and David Baldacci.