Note: This is an encore edition of Reader's Corner. The episode originally premiered in June 2021.
Daniel Levin was at his office when he got a call from an acquaintance with an urgent, cryptic request to meet in Paris. A young man had gone missing in Syria. No government, embassy, or intelligence agency would help. Could he? Would he? So begins a suspenseful, shocking, and at times brutal true story of one man’s search to find a missing person in Syria over twenty tense days.
In his latest book, Proof of Life: Twenty Days on the Hunt for a Missing Person in the Middle East, Daniel Levin dives deep into a shadowy world where few have access—an underground industry of war where everything is for sale, including arms, drugs, and even people. He offers a fascinating study of how people use leverage to get what they want from one another and where no one does a favor without wanting something in return, whether it’s immediately or years down the road.
Daniel Levin has spent the last twenty years working with governments and development institutions worldwide. A lawyer by profession, he is an advisor on political and economic affairs, from financial development to conflict resolution. Levin is also the author of Nothing but a Circus: Misadventures Among the Powerful.
