“Excuse me, sir, but may I be of assistance? Ah, I see I have alarmed you.” – Mohsin Hamid, ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’

The opening lines of Mohsin Hamid’s tense and ambiguous novel, spoken by a bearded Pakistani to a barrel-chested American, could just as well be Islamabad addressing Washington. Ever since General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s former military ruler, pledged his country as a pivotal ally in the war on terror after the attacks of September 11 2001, the US and Pakistan have been locked in a strange and ambivalent embrace. Pakistan has been of assistance. The US has been alternately grateful and alarmed.