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.
As a successful trial lawyer, Mike Beck uses his personality
and his skill with the letter of the law to win in a
courtroom. As a Marine Reservist ordered to Iraq on an
unexpected deployment, he finds himself in a different world
where the law of war often conflicts with common sense and
his own feel for what's right and what's...
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