Brett McGurk, the veteran US diplomat who led Washington's negotiations to free the hostages taken by Hamas on October 7, is set to publish a firsthand account of the talks next week, including details of a near-deal to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia that was taking shape before the massacre.
"Brink: Inside the Race to Free the October 7th Hostages" will be released on October 6 by Crown, an imprint of Penguin Random House. It has already reached No. 1 in Amazon's new releases for military policy.
"On October 7, Hamas unleashed a devastating war and the largest hostage crisis in modern history," McGurk said in a statement. "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."
McGurk served as President Joe Biden's National Security Council coordinator for the Middle East and led negotiations between the United States, Israel, Egypt and Qatar on a ceasefire and the release of hostages held by Hamas. According to the publisher, the book takes readers inside his discussions with Biden, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and officials in Qatar, Egypt and Oman over 15 months of talks, as Iran and its proxies opened fire on Israeli and American targets.
The publisher describes McGurk as caught between "Hamas's maximalist demands and Israel's determination that Hamas could not maintain power in Gaza."
The book also recounts his unlikely partnership after the 2024 election with Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump's envoy, which the publisher says forged a bipartisan front to secure a ceasefire. The remaining surviving hostages were freed in October 2025.
Advance praise has come from across the national security world. Former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis called it "a serious book about a serious time," while Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent Dexter Filkins described it as "as riveting as a suspense novel, except it's true."
McGurk has served four US presidents, playing senior roles in the Iraq war and in leading the global coalition against ISIS.
