Noted NBC war correspondent for the Middle East and Tel Aviv bureau chief Martin Fletcher delivers a thrilling novel set in the 1990s, using his lengthy experiences as a journalist to take readers on a touching, stressful, and emotional ride through wartime Bosnia and Serbia. The book is action-packed while also exploring the complex personal relationships that develop in a volatile war setting.
The main character in this gripping novel is Tom Layne, a well respected television journalist. Tom is skilled in presenting moments of shocking realism in war-torn countries that make him a highly popular correspondent. His team includes Nick, a young, sharp cameraman, and a brilliant interpreter named Nina. The trio works together in reporting on everything from fighting and bombing to heartfelt human-interest stories. One such story is about a little boy who had been separated from his mother when a bomb exploded in a hospital. Tom and his team sneak in and out of the hospital trying to find information about the child so they could reunite the family. Tragedy befalls the team while they are filming the story. A gang of paramilitary men were sent to the team’s location by their leader, General Ratko Mladic, to rough up Tom and his team.
Tom and his team are shaken. Tom returns to America and Nina, living and reliving her nightmare, remains in Serbia, trying to reconstruct her life. During this time, Tom realizes that Nina is his true love, but Nina is trying to move on from the war — and Tom. The story holds readers titillated in hoping that Tom and Nina can heal from the horrors they have experienced.
It takes Tom fifteen years to return to Bosnia and Serbia to make a documentary about General Ratko Mladic and his war crimes. He convinces Nina to collaborate on the documentary. The war had left the people of Bosnia and Serbia shaken, poor and fearful of the commander of the Bosnian Serb army, the patron of rape, murder, and torture. General Mladic and his men try to stop Tom and Nina from putting together the documentary that facilitates the reunion of Tom and Nina. Once Tom and Nina start putting together the documentary — interviewing war victims, editing footage — they become part of each other’s lives, and the healing begins.
The War Reporter is a moving novel, a crisply written and believable story of modern-day war and its effect on human relationships that keeps readers fully engrossed from start to finish.