Brian van Reet - Spoils

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Very good but flawed

Spoils is a good, well-written book, but it has its flaws. 

The well-publicised nub of the story is that in the 2003 Iraq war, a female US soldier, Cassandra Wigheard, is captured by a group of jihadi fighters.  We get a first-person account by Abu al-Hool an experienced, slightly world-weary jihadi and a third-person narrative from Wigheard's point of view.  Both of these are very well done; van Reet clearly knows about his subject matter and I found the setting and action completely convincing.  These two voices, too, are very good and I found myself involved with both characters.  There is also another first-person narrative from Sleed, another soldier, to give the perspective of those observing and trying to find Wigheard.  I thought this was a mistake. 

The story moves a little sluggishly to begin with; the capture which the publishers' blurb suggests is the central theme of the book doesn't happen until about half way through.  The book chops between narrators and timescales (almost obligatory in current fiction, apparently) which for me didn't help the book at all, and the Sleed voice simply got in the way.  He is making important points about the conduct of the war – but they're not what the book is really about and a tightening of the structure would have helped a great deal.

I thought the second half of Spoils was excellent.  It was tense, gripping, insightful and very well written.  Van Reet's portraits of Wigheard and al-Hool are excellent and I was completely involved as things developed.  The Sleed narrative still intruded, but less so, and apart from one long, inappropriate flashback to earlier times just as the climax approached, I found it completely engrossing.

With tighter editing sand structure, this could have been a real modern war classic in the same league as The Yellow Birds or Billy Lynn's Long Half Time Walk.  There are parts of Spoils which are in that class, but it was somewhat flawed as a novel.  However, much of it is truly excellent and very memorable and I can recommend it.

(I received an ARC via Netgalley.)