Partly set in Fallujah and partly in ordinary suburban Chicago, this is a look at people today in vastly different situations. We meet men who describe ordinary wear as civilian clothes, and a former model who went into photojournalism. I found it a little hard to get into the story, with each chapter preceded by three lines giving date and location, as if it was a documentary or a filed report.

Anne Merrill, journalist, thinks it her DUTY TO INVESTIGATE an eviction and finds that the elderly lady householder was paying her mortgage, but the bank asked for proof that the house was insured. When none was provided they took out an insurance policy on the house and raised the mortgage to include it. The householder continued to pay the previous amount, so the bank put that in a holding account, then claimed that she was months behind in her payments, which allowed them to begin the eviction process. Anne doesn't know if there is just a miscommunication or something more deliberate at work.

The soldier's tale is that of a Marine Corps man, Mike Beck, and we also get to see life from the viewpoint of Haitham, a native in the troubled country of Iraq. Anne arrives with other journalists to record the ongoing situation and she is given a discreet shift of female Marines as security - to stop the male soldiers from getting into trouble. Life is hot, hard, and dangerous, and there is no law in the city, where six thousand terrorists are estimated to be at large.

This story may partly have a female protagonist but to me it all reads as masculine, perhaps because of the constant jargon. The account of Haitham is grittily full of explicit violence and disregard for human rights. While military detail is good and comes across as written by someone who has been there, we do get a sense that the situation is too big to be controlled and that any Westerners are likely to die unpleasantly if captured by the wrong people. Anne is a likeable, competent woman, undoubtedly bright, but most successful models do not change career just because they get bored, while they are still young and in demand. I thought that if this was written by a woman Anne would have been of average looks. DUTY TO INVESTIGATE by JW Stone is not an easy read but will suit those looking for a dose of truth about Iraq and the risks faced by serving soldiers.