An exemplary anti-war novel from a little-known theater of conflict.
Searing novel of war by dissident Ethiopian writer Girma.
Part spy thriller, part melodrama, roman à clef through and through, Girma’s story centers on a moment of Ethiopian history that, in that demographically young country, is all but forgotten. It is the early 1980s, and Ethiopia, under a Marxist military dictatorship, has set out to conquer neighboring Eritrea. “Every day another campaign of some sort,” complains his fiancee, Roman, to a propaganda officer named Tsegaye Hailemaryam. “Now the Red Star Campaign to fix the Eritrean problem. We are addicted to campaigns, but I can’t wait until we can be done with them.” Caught up in the excitement of certain victory, Tsegaye jumps at the chance to go to the front, exalting the invading forces and excoriating the Eritrean resistance, which he depicts as terrorists. The soldiers in Girma’s narrative are pawns, but the officers are well-rounded: One general is so militarily perfect that “even his Afro, though thinning, has sharp edges,” while a schoolmate of Tsegaye’s, Colonel Wolday Tariku, can’t wait to fight: “Give Wolday a drink and a rifle and he is a happy man.” As Roman foresees, Tsegaye forgets his vows to her and falls in love with an Eritrean beauty and Mata Hari named Fiammetta Gilay. Girma’s writing is most immediate in the slaughterhouse of battle, which is not for the squeamish: “A decapitated torso with blood pumping from where a neck once was....A bullet-ridden corpse with an open mouth and unblinking eyes staring up at the red sky.” As the tautly written story resolves, failure, death, and disillusionment are its constants. It’s worth noting that, although the Marxist regime tried to suppress it, Girma’s novel was an underground bestseller in Ethiopia in the early 1980s—and for his criticisms of that regime, Girma paid with his life.
An exemplary anti-war novel from a little-known theater of conflict.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781641296663
Page Count: 408
Publisher: Soho
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.
A medical student is assigned an overnight shift to observe a Long Island hospital’s psychiatric ward and help with emergencies. You’d never guess what happens next.
Amy Brenner isn’t even interested in psychiatry, the one medical specialty she’s never considered for her own career. Nor is she interested any more in Cameron Berger, the classmate who ended their relationship so that he could spend more time studying, and she’s not pleased to learn that he’s switched his rotation with another student so he can spend some of the next 13 hours persuading Amy to rekindle their romance. Predictably, Cam will be the least of Amy’s troubles. Apart from Dr. Richard Beck and nurse Ramona Dutton, everyone else on Ward D is much more dangerous, from elderly Mary Cummings, whose knitting needles aren’t plastic but sharpened steel, to William Schoenfeld, who’s stopped taking the medications that were supposed to silence the voices telling him to kill people, to Damon Sawyer, who’s confined in Seclusion One and can’t possibly escape, unless a power outage neutralizes the locks. Most threatening of all is Jade Carpenter, whose close friendship with Amy ended eight years ago when Amy turned her in for what ended up being only one of a whole series of thrill crimes. McFadden measures out the complications, revelations, and betrayals with such an expert hand that readers anxiously trying to figure out whom Amy can trust as her goal shifts from ticking off a toilsome requirement to surviving the night may well end up wondering whom they can trust themselves. And isn’t provoking that kind of paranoia what medical thrillers are all about?
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.Pub Date: March 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227271
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
Soapy, suspenseful fun.
A remembered horror plunges a pregnant woman into a waking nightmare.
Tegan Werner, 23, barely recalls her one-night stand with married real estate developer Simon Lamar; she only learns Simon’s name after seeing him on the local news five months later. Simon wants nothing to do with the resulting child Tegan now carries and tells his lawyer to negotiate a nondisclosure agreement. A destitute Tegan is all too happy to trade her silence for cash—until a whiff of Simon’s cologne triggers a memory of him drugging and raping her. Distraught and eight months pregnant, Tegan flees her Lewiston, Maine, apartment and drives north in a blizzard, intending to seek comfort and counsel from her older brother, Dennis; instead, she gets lost and crashes, badly injuring her ankle. Tegan is terrified when hulking stranger Hank Thompson stops and extricates her from the wreck, and becomes even more so when he takes her to his cabin rather than the hospital, citing hazardous road conditions. Her anxiety eases somewhat upon meeting Hank’s wife, Polly—a former nurse who settles Tegan in a basement hospital room originally built for Polly’s now-deceased mother. Polly vows to call 911 as soon as the phones and power return, but when that doesn’t happen, Tegan becomes convinced that Hank is forcing Polly to hold her prisoner. Tegan doesn’t know the half of it. McFadden unspools her twisty tale via a first-person-present narration that alternates between Tegan and Polly, grounding character while elevating tension. Coincidence and frustratingly foolish assumptions fuel the plot, but readers able to suspend disbelief are in for a wild ride. A purposefully ambiguous, forward-flashing prologue hints at future homicide, establishing stakes from the jump.
Soapy, suspenseful fun.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227325
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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