AN EPIC MASTERWORK OF INTERNATIONAL INTRIGUE IN THE TRADITION OF ROBERTO BOLANO AND JOHN LE CARRE SET IN THE ASHES OF WAR-TORN IRAQ, ITALY, AND AREAS IN BETWEEN. The Kills is an epic novel of crime and conspiracy told in four books. The story begins with a man on the run and ends with a burned body. Moving across continents, characters, and genres, you won’t find a more ambitious or thrilling novel this year. Camp Liberty is an unmanned staging post in Amrah City, Iraq, the place where the detritus of the war is buried, incinerated, removed from memory. Out of the blue, plans are announced to transform it into the largest military base in the country, code-named the Massive, with a postwar strategy to convert the site for civilian use. Contracted by HOSCO International, the insidious company responsible for overseeing the Massive, Rem Gunnersen finds himself unwittingly commanding a disparate group of economic mercenaries at Camp Liberty when the mysterious Stephen Lawrence Sutler arrives. As the men are unwittingly pitted against one another by HOSCO, the situation grows increasingly tense. And then everything changes. An explosion. An attack on a regional government office. When the dust settles, it emerges that Sutler has disappeared, and more than fifty million dollars of reconstruction funds are missing. Sutler finds himself accused and on the run. Gunnersen and his men want revenge for months of abuse and misinformation. Out of the chaos Paul Geezler, a man more involved than he’s willing to admit, rises to restore order. And then there’s the vicious murder of an American student in Italy. A murder that replicates exactly the details of a well-known novel that has found itself into the hands of various characters throughout this gripping tale.