Prisoner Z, held at a black site in the Negev desert for a dozen years has only his guard for company. How does a nice American Jewish boy from Long Island wind up an Israeli spy working for Mossad, and later, a traitor to his adopted country? What does it mean to be loyal, what does it mean to be a traitor, when the ideals you cherish are betrayed by the country you love?From Israel and Gaza to Paris, Italy, and America, the story shifts back in time, providing a kaleidoscopic glimpse of Prisoner Z's improbable journey to his desert cell.Englander's irresistible hero brings wit and heartbreak to his predicament and the plight of a damaged and riven nation.Taut, provocative, and impossible to put down, a novel of full of shifting surfaces, where nothing and no one is what it seems, Dinner at the Centre of the Earth is the most electrifying work of Nathan Englander's extraordinary career.