Interview: Author ‘Bryan Christy’ Talks His Great Debut Fiction Novel In The Company Of Killers

Bryan Christy is author of the novel In the Company of Killers (Putnam, April, 2021), and the non-fiction The Lizard King (Twelve, currently in production A24 Films). He is the founder and former head of Special Investigations at National Geographic and a National Geographic Society Rolex Explorer of the Year. In 2017 he left National Geographic to focus on fiction. In the Company of Killers is his first novel.

Christy has appeared on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, NPR’s Fresh Air w Terry Gross (and here), the Diane Rehm Show, CNN’s Amanpour, BBC, MSNBC, Nightline, PBS NewsHour, RTL Late Night (Netherlands), ABC News, and more. He has testified before Congress on terrorism in Africa, and has lectured for law enforcement and investigative journalism programs around the world.

He began his professional life as a mortician’s apprentice working in his family’s New Jersey funeral home. He passed the CPA and bar exams and practiced international law in Washington, DC where he worked on such topics as US-Japan supercomputer trade, Norwegian whaling, and the sale of light-water nuclear reactors to North Korea.

Check out his website here, Facebook and Twitter. The book is in stores on Tuesday, April 13th from Putnam. You can listen below to the interview.

In this intricate and propulsive thriller–from National Geographic’s founder of Special Investigations–Tom Klay an investigative reporter leading a double life as a CIA spy, discovers that he has been weaponized in a global game of espionage pitting him against one of the world’s most ruthless men.

Tom Klay is a celebrated investigative wildlife reporter for the esteemed magazine The Sovereign. But Klay is not just a journalist. His reporting is cover for an even more dangerous job: CIA agent. Klay’s press credentials make him a perfect spy–able to travel the globe, engage both politicians and warlords, and openly record what he sees. When he needs help, the Agency provides it to him, and asks little in return. But while on assignment in Kenya, Klay is attacked and his closest friend is murdered. Soon Klay’s carefully constructed double life unravels as his ambition turns to revenge.

The CIA has an answer. Klay is offered a devil’s bargain to capture the man who killed his friend by infiltrating the offices of the woman he once loved, South Africa’s special prosecutor, Hungry Khoza. But Klay soon discovers that he and Hungry are part of a larger, more lethal game–one that involves a ruthless mercenary and a global superpower. The deeper he digs, the more Klay realizes that everything he thought he knew about his work may have been a lie, and his sworn enemy may be his only ally. In this riveting, timely thriller, the lines between good and evil blur, and absolutely nothing is as it seems.