The Right Side by Spencer Quinn

First Line: "Just want to make sure I've got your name right."

LeAnne Hogan joined the army determined to work hard and make the military her life. She returned home from Afghanistan in a much-altered state of mind. Having lost an eye and suffering from a brain injury, she can't really remember the desert operation that almost killed her. Her mind is a jumbled mess of confusion and anger, and she's almost convinced herself that the desert op-gone-wrong was her fault-- even though no one will come right out and say so.

The only thing that makes her days bearable in the hospital is her friendship with her roommate, Marci. Marci seems to be dealing well with her amputation, but when she dies suddenly, LeAnne walks out of Walter Reed and starts out on a cross-country drive. Having only the vision in one eye, LeAnne's native land now looks unfamiliar, and her strength and stamina are failing her. When she arrives in Marci's hometown, she learns that Marci's eight-year-old daughter is missing. Just as she decides to make finding the little girl her priority, LeAnne is suddenly adopted by a huge stray dog. LeAnne doesn't even like dogs, but this one refuses to leave her, and somehow a bond forms between the two as they look for a lost little girl.

This is quite a departure from Spencer Quinn's Chet and Bernie mystery series. There is no gentle humor. There is no dog's point of view. No, in The Right Side, Spencer Quinn gives us edginess, uncertainty, and an extremely unpredictable hero with an equally unreadable dog.

LeAnne Hogan is a physical and psychological loose cannon. She's suffering from her injuries. She's suffering from PTSD. She's suffering from feelings of inadequacy and failure. She's not your usual choice for the hero of a book, and that's one of the things that makes The Right Side so good. You literally do not know which way LeAnne is going to jump from one scene to the next. Her anger is explosive and frightening, but Quinn portrays her in such a way that we instinctively know that she's a good person. We want her to get well. We want her to be safe and happy.

This woman needs help, but she's going to fight everyone who wants to give her that help every single step of the way. She even fiercely resists the dog, but this huge beast of unknown pedigree just ignores her. The dog is just as much a mystery as LeAnne, but you know this relationship will work because of one thing: the dog unerringly protects her blind side.

Quinn gives us two mysteries in The Right Side: one involving the missing child, and one that concerns what really happened to LeAnne in Afghanistan. Both are strong and grab your attention. Another mystery for me is... will Quinn write about LeAnne again? She's one of the best characters I've encountered in a long time, and I wouldn't mind reading more about her. But sometimes it's best to see just one adventure in a character's journey through life. Whatever the author does, I'm certainly glad I met LeAnne-- and I hope you'll decide to meet her, too.

The Right Side by Spencer Quinn

eISBN:  9781501118425

Atria Books © 2017

eBook, 336 pages

Suspense, Standalone

Rating: A+

Source: Net Galley

The Watch by Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya

First Lines: One. Two. Three. Four. I count the moments and say the Basmala in my head.

The American soldiers in Combat Outpost Tarsándan deep in the Kandahar Province of Afghanistan have just been through a fierce all-night battle. Several of them have been killed. The survivors are exhausted, upset and on edge. It is not the best time for Nizam to come to claim the body of her brother, but that is exactly what she's done.

Nizam, the rest of whose family was killed by the bomb-dropping drone that took both her legs, insists on giving her brother a proper burial, but the soldiers can't trust her. She could be a spy, a lunatic, or a suicide bomber. Besides, the chain of command believes her brother to have been a Taliban leader, and his body is to be sent elsewhere to be made an example of. Nizam insists this isn't true and refuses to leave, forcing this  beleaguered group of soldiers to make a tough decision. What are they going to do? See this dilemma solely in terms of black and white-- or in shades of grey? Follow orders, or do what's right?

The story begins from Nizam's point of view, and the author immediately puts the reader on her side-- feeling her pain, her exhaustion and her grief. It is a powerful beginning which then shifts to the men inside the outpost. The clock is turned back a couple of days, showing the time leading up to the deadly attack and its aftermath, which explains the soldiers' emotional mindsets.

Chapter by chapter, we're introduced to them and to the Afghan interpreter assigned to the outpost. As the story advances and the reader compares the American point of view to Nizam's, the misunderstandings that lead to the final outcome are clear.

Some of the men are educated and have made at least a rudimentary effort to learn something about the area, its people, its customs and language. However, most of the soldiers are barely in their twenties and have chosen a life in the military for the paycheck. For these soldiers, it was a choice of the army or a "life in methland." They've made no effort to learn anything about the country they're in or about the people who live there. It's a recipe for disaster.

From the strong, emotional beginning, the book eventually began to lose some momentum for me. The author had a set way of introducing the soldiers, and this formulaic method made many of them appear one-dimensional. The exception to this was the interpreter, a young man who naively believed that all the soldiers were wealthy, well-educated, and in Afghanistan to fight for the ideals of freedom and justice. Since those are two things that he desperately desires for his country, when he's asked to interpret for the soldiers and for Nizam, too often he puts his own feelings above the need for accurate translation.

In the end, I found a great deal to admire in the book, but I believe the author tried too hard to get the point across that America must get out of Afghanistan. Nizam was in the right; the Americans were in the wrong. Seldom in life are things so cut and dried. How much more powerful the message would have been if truths had been dispensed with an even hand.

The Watch by Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya

ISBN: 9780307955890

Hogarth   ©2012

Hardcover, 304 pages

Genre: Suspense/Thriller

Rating: B-

Source: Amazon Vine