The Girl From Kandahar

Embedded deep under cover in Afghanistan, disguised as the third wife of the ISAF’s most trusted operatives, British secret agent Marcie Brown is suspected to have been killed in a drone strike, but her body remains unrecovered. Back in Britain, her husband has been put in charge of a counter-terrorism operation, just in time to suspect his wife is one of the bombers and has lost her memory.

If you’re looking for a fast-paced, realistic political thriller, with a multi-perspective narrative, rich detail, and twists that will keep the reader guessing, look no further than Tales from MI7: The Girl from Kandahar. Characters, such as Ruby Parker, recur from other books in J.J. Ward’s series about MI7. This is the type of novel that will make you work, tracking characters, complex relationships, and interconnected plots. The reader is not hand-fed anything, which is one of this book’s strengths.

Too often, books can be rife with violence for violence sake, using it as shock and awe or with too few details to be sickeningly realistic. This book has none of those flaws, with violence so real, so cavalier on the part of the Afghan women and Taliban that it could be ripped from the headlines. The Girl from Kandahar possesses the kind of radical, realistic violence that a veteran who served in Iraq said “yup, that sounds about right.” While it can prove tricky if you’re not familiar with Middle Eastern names, this book captures the mindset of another culture and paints the desperate, dark picture that is a woman’s life in parts of the Middle East.

While this is not a must-read, it’s definitely a good read. This is the kind of book that will make the reader squirm, push comfort zones, and make anyone glad to live elsewhere.