This Green Land

by John Fullerton

Reem is twenty, bright and strikingly attractive. Nick is twenty-seven and, on his first posting abroad to a beautiful country torn apart by war, he is determined to make the world a better place. And though it seems a stroke of remarkably good fortune, it is by no means an accident when they meet in a fashionable bar, for Reem is a newly-trained terrorist, and has been sent out deliberately to distract Nick. Nick has what Reem access out of the city's besieged western sector, and to a notorious rightwing warlord who has his sights set on the country's presidency. For Reem, the fight is personal; she has lost both her family and her home, everything she has ever valued. So she volunteers for the ultimate a suicide attack. And once Nick understands the truth, he needs to make a choice - to follow his heart, or carry out what his contacts at the British embassy insist is his duty.

406 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

John Fullerton worked briefly during the Cold War as a 'contract labourer' for Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6, an episode that fired up his interest in fictional espionage. He failed spectacularly in his efforts as a farmer in Zimbabwe and as a trainee financial manager in Cape Town. As a newspaperman, freelance journalist and then Reuters correspondent, he lived or worked in 40 countries and covered a dozen wars. The latter provided some of the settings for his fiction, including Beirut and Sarajevo. His latest thriller, Emperor, was published in 2022. He has an MA with distinction in Buddhist Studies and was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund at Roehampton University in 2006/7.

Reviews

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this gripping and beautifully written. The novel draws you into Beirut in the 1980s and builds up to a cinematic climax.

[Caroline Price]

DNF. Couldn't get into it

[Gill · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't say I enjoyed this book because some of it was very hard to read and much of it was confusing. That, of course, is because of the subject matter, the Lebanese Civil War. It was, however, very well written and gave me some insight into why and how someone could become a suicide bomber, and the characters were well written and developed through the story.

[Renske · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book a little bit hard to read. It has a couple of difficult words in it and I didn’t always understand whose side of the story it was. After all, I find the book well written and the story was interesting and nice.