Obviously people reading this book are loving it, but sadly, that just wasn't the case with me. Overall, I'd give it a rating of okay, but I would recommend it to readers of political thrillers.
There are a number of things I did like about this book, but heading the list
…more is Nina's reflections about the journalists covering the war. As she notes, while her life, and those of her friends, in Bosnia were falling apart, "collapsing around us," for the reporters it was just "one great story after another." Now there's food for thought. In fact, the best parts of this novel were the scenes in Bosnia in part one. Imagine how frightening it must be to take a drive to a nearby village and wonder if you're going to be attacked, and by whom on the road. Another eye-opening part of this book was the level of international politics involved in making sure that a war criminal stays hidden, while the people who've suffered because of him never get justice.
However, sometimes I felt that reading this book was like reading the work of two different authors. While in reporting mode and while uncovering the politics behind the continued concealment of the war criminal, Fletcher is absolutely brilliant. Then there are those personal scenes between Tom and Nina, sometimes going on page after page, which in my opinion, could have been cut quite a bit. So balancing the two ends of the spectrum, I'll give it a rating of okay. (less)