Excerpt from A Moonless, Starless Sky by Alexis Okeowo, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

For over a quarter of a century, the LRA carried out an unprecedented reign of terror, first in northern Uganda, and then in neighboring South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Central African Republic. The killing, mutilating, abducting, and looting had become completely divorced from Kony's stated revolutionary political goal—restoring Acholi dominance. In a warped reading of the Bible, Kony instructed rebels to cut off the lips, ears, and noses of their victims, to amputate their arms and legs if they rode bicycles on the Sabbath, and any other kind of medieval punishment imaginable. The LRA forcibly recruited some 30,000 children from northern Uganda into its ranks and displaced 2 million people in the region. A 2006 cease-fire between the rebels and the Ugandan government was intended to finally end the LRA's operations in the north.

The town of Gulu was the epicenter of the LRA's uprising. Its chairman, or local leader, the bright and energetic Martin Mapenduzi, met Kony twice during peace talks in South Sudan. Once was in the dense jungle of the Garamba National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where Kony spoke for two hours straight. Some northern members of Mapenduzi's government-appointed negotiation team were almost persuaded by Kony's accusations against Museveni of corruption, bias in employment and military recruitment, and economic neglect. Kony struck Mapenduzi as unpredictable and paranoid, though clever. His team told the warlord that people were ready to forgive him. But LRA leaders bristled when Mapenduzi explained that there would have to be some accountability for their crimes, and that International Criminal Court indictments against Kony and his deputies still stood. Various clergy appealed to Kony, to no avail. So as Kony negotiated a peace agreement, he was secretly moving fighters to the Central African Republic. In the spring of 2008, at the final signing ceremony of the peace agreement, he simply never showed up.

After taking advantage of the Central African Republic's heavily forested and weakly governed areas already rife with bandits, Kony was believed to be hiding in Sudan. His foot soldiers were still kidnapping and killing through the region. In 2011, the United States tried to capture or kill Kony by sending one hundred special forces to Uganda, South Sudan, the Congo, and the Central African Republic to help the African Union force, made up primarily of Ugandan troops, hunt the rebels. But the Ugandans complained of insufficient equipment, lack of intelligence on the rebels' whereabouts, and meager food rations. The nonprofit Invisible Children released a viral video on the warlord in 2012; Kony still proved elusive. In 2014, the United States sent more military aircraft and special forces to help. A few key LRA leaders had surrendered or been captured or killed. But the LRA's independence from technology was one of their greatest assets, allowing them to avoid their hunters by using messengers and handwritten letters to communicate, and eschewing phones and two-way radios. U.S. officials acknowledged the rebels were unlike any other enemy they had faced. And in early 2017, the Americans and the Ugandans announced they would be withdrawing their missions from the Central African Republic.

Even though the LRA was no longer in Uganda, its ghosts hovered in the uneasy peace. Families across Uganda had not only members who had been killed, raped, and disfigured by rebels, but also those who were forced into the LRA and had now returned. Until May 2012, LRA combatants who either surrendered or escaped were granted amnesty by the Ugandan government. Over 13,000 fighters received amnesty, and many were given the option to join the army. They now slept next to soldiers, their former enemies, in Ugandan military garrisons as they hunted for their old comrades. Other ex-fighters, and sex slaves and porters, settled near people they may have once harmed, and their former communities didn't know what to do with them. Nearly all were kidnapped as children, but their actions after the abductions were usually appalling. Children were forced to kill their parents and then, sometimes, eat a meal with their hands still soaked in blood. Communities were struggling in the aftermath.

Excerpted from A Moonless, Starless Sky by Alexis Okeowo. Copyright © 2017 by Alexis Okeowo. Excerpted by permission of Hachette Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.