The Hypebeast

Small-time crook Hamid's search for his missing girlfriend pulls him into the orbit of a charismatic social-media imam.Tax fraud, telemarketing tricks, government scams. If you're tired of receiving these phone calls, imagine the guys making them.Hamid Shaikh is a small-time crook in the big city, hoping that one of his cons will lead to riches. When he's not working the phones hustling bogus duct-cleaning services, he dreams of a move that will finally announce his arrival.When his girlfriend Natalie Mendoza vanishes, he finds himself pulled into the world of former Guantanamo Bay detainee turned social-media imam Abdul Mohammed. As Hamid dives deeper into Abdul's nebulous and luxurious world, he finds a confusing mix of religious fervour and cynical self-advancement, and must decide just how far into darkness he wants to go to get Natalie back.A book of scams religious, political and economic, The Hypebeast is an utterly contemporary look at North American urban striving amid international geopolitical upheaval.