War Torn Hardcover - 2003

by John Marks

From the author of the gripping Cold War thriller and New York Times Notable Book The Wall comes its suspenseful sequel, set in Berlin and the former Yugoslavia.

John Marks' first novel, The Wall, a thinking man's thriller, was compared to Graham Greene's espionage novels and, in both its depth and contemporary relevance, to Robert Stone's Damascus Gate. Now, in War Torn, Marks reveals another pivotal moment in history-through the lens of a love affair between an American journalist and a woman from the former Yugoslavia.

War Torn begins in the aftermath of the Cold War in Berlin, where a century of trauma is coming to an end and it is finally possible to speak with confidence about the future. Close by, but worlds away, the nightmare is just beginning in Mostar, where civil war is about to erupt, robbing its citizens of their homeland and obliterating everything they cherish. War Torn is a story of people caught up in war who cannot stop to make sense of it but must fight simply to survive. And of what happens to them when the dust settles, when what counted before-family, loyalty, home-no longer matters, or even exists. John Marks depicts history in the making, and its impact on two lives has implications for us all.