The Girl in Green

Derek B. Miller

‘Told with all the wit, humanity, and insight of [Miller's] acclaimed debut … Best book we’ve read in ages.’

Sunday Canberra Times

‘Miller cuts through the rhetoric and the cynicism and gets to the heart of what is happening in our world at the moment … This is a must read from a writer of extreme talent and compassion.’

Jon Page, Pages and Pages Booksellers

View all reviews

‘A heart-thumping thriller … [Miller's] first book, Norwegian By Night, was one of my favourite books of 2012, and I think this one’s even better.’

Townsville Bulletin

‘[An] important novel that tries to convey not only the drivers of the headlines but also the situation that remains when the news cycle moves on.’

Robert Goodman, AustCrimeFiction.org

‘One of the finest literary thrillers of the year. Derek B. Miller is now firmly in my Must-Read category of authors.’

Simon McDonald, WrittenBySime.com

‘An important novel full of humanity and humour.’

Karen Hardy, Sunday Canberra Times

‘Funny, sad, enlightening, and upliftingly hopeful … the story wraps around you like a cloak that you never want to let go.’

Sunday Territorian

'Miller brilliantly blends offbeat reflection and dark emotion ... A penetrating, poetic, and unexpectedly disarming book about the ageless conflict in the Middle East.’

Kirkus

‘A suspenseful, character-driven, eerily prescient moral thriller.’

Cameron Woodhead, Saturday Age

From the author of Norwegian By Night comes a new novel about two men on a misbegotten quest to save the girl they failed to save decades before.

1991. Near Checkpoint Zulu, one hundred miles from the Kuwaiti border, Thomas Benton meets Arwood Hobbes. Benton is a British journalist who reports from war zones, in part to avoid his lacklustre marriage and a daughter he loves but cannot connect with; Hobbes is a midwestern American private who might be an insufferable ignoramus, or might be a brilliant lunatic with a death wish — it’s hard to tell. Operation Desert Storm is over, peace has been declared, but as they argue about whether it makes sense to cross the nearest border in search of an ice cream, they become embroiled in a horrific attack in which a young local girl in a green dress is shot in the back and dies in Hobbes’s arms. The two men walk away into their respective lives. But something has cracked for them both.

Twenty-two years later, in another place, in another war, the two men meet again. Benton and relief worker Märta Ström are persuaded by a much-changed Hobbes to embark on what may be a fool’s errand in a last-chance effort to redeem themselves when the girl in green is found alive and in need of salvation. Or is she?

Set against the war-torn landscape of a shattered Iraq, The Girl in Green is an adventure story told with all the wit, humanity, and insight of Miller’s acclaimed debut.

‘Told with all the wit, humanity, and insight of [Miller's] acclaimed debut … Best book we’ve read in ages.’

Sunday Canberra Times

‘Miller cuts through the rhetoric and the cynicism and gets to the heart of what is happening in our world at the moment … This is a must read from a writer of extreme talent and compassion.’

Jon Page, Pages and Pages Booksellers

View all reviews

‘A heart-thumping thriller … [Miller's] first book, Norwegian By Night, was one of my favourite books of 2012, and I think this one’s even better.’

Townsville Bulletin

‘[An] important novel that tries to convey not only the drivers of the headlines but also the situation that remains when the news cycle moves on.’

Robert Goodman, AustCrimeFiction.org

‘One of the finest literary thrillers of the year. Derek B. Miller is now firmly in my Must-Read category of authors.’

Simon McDonald, WrittenBySime.com

‘An important novel full of humanity and humour.’

Karen Hardy, Sunday Canberra Times

‘Funny, sad, enlightening, and upliftingly hopeful … the story wraps around you like a cloak that you never want to let go.’

Sunday Territorian

'Miller brilliantly blends offbeat reflection and dark emotion ... A penetrating, poetic, and unexpectedly disarming book about the ageless conflict in the Middle East.’

Kirkus

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Details

Format:Paperback

Size: 234mm × 153mm

Extent:384pp

ISBN (13):9781925106954

RRP:$32.99

Pub date:27 Jun 2016

Rights Held: ANZ

High-res cover:Download Image

BOOK CLUB NOTES:Download PDF

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AUTHOR

Derek B. Miller

Derek B. Miller was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts, and has lived abroad for over fifteen years in Israel, England, Hungary, Switzerland, and Norway. His interest in fiction began a few years after graduating from Sarah Lawrence College. Currently, Derek is the director of The Policy Lab and a senior fellow with the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research. He has a PhD in international relations from the University of Geneva, and an MA in national security studies from Georgetown University, in cooperation with St Catherine’s College, University of Oxford. He lives in Oslo with his wife and children.