US negotiator Brett McGurk will release a book on the Hamas hostage crisis
Jul 15, 2026, 4:17 AM
FILE - Brett McGurk, the U.S. envoy for the global coalition against IS, speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Embassy Baghdad, Iraq, June 7, 2017. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban, File)
Credit: AP Photo/Hadi Mizban
(AP Photo/Hadi Mizban, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — A lead U.S. negotiator for the release of hundreds of people captured by Hamas during the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks in Israel will have a book out this fall.
The Penguin Random House imprint Crown has scheduled Brett McGurk’s “Brink: Inside the Race to Free the October 7 Hostages” for Oct. 6, nearly three years to the day after the deadly Hamas siege that left more than 1,000 people dead and more than 200 taken captive.
McGurk, 53, is a longtime Middle East adviser and diplomat who had already served under three presidents when he was appointed by President Joe Biden in 2023 to oversee hostage talks between Israel and Hamas. According to Crown, McGurk will describe his frantic efforts to balance the competing and seemingly intractable demands of the two sides, traveling worldwide in pursuit of an agreement.
“On October 7, Hamas unleashed a devastating war and the largest hostage crisis in modern history,” McGurk said in a statement released Wednesday by Crown. “I wrote ‘Brink’ to bring readers inside the rooms as events unfolded in real time — from the Situation Room with hundreds of missiles in the air, to compounds across the Middle East where diplomacy teetered between breakthrough and collapse.”
According to Crown, McGurk will also disclose details of a near-deal before Oct. 7 that would have normalized relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia and will remember his unlikely alliance with President Donald Trump appointee Steve Witkoff as they handled talks during the transition time between the administrations of Biden, a Democrat, and Trump, a Republican. The remaining surviving hostages were freed in October 2025.
“’Brink’ details the bipartisan front they forged when it mattered most, ultimately securing a deal that would save lives,” the publisher’s announcement reads in part.
