Published by Little, Brown & Co./Lee Boudreaux Books on April 18, 2017

Spoils tells a war story (Iraq 2003) from three intersecting points of view. Two narrators are Americans and the third is an Egyptian emir whose belief in jihad has taken him to Chechnya, Afghanistan, and (somewhat reluctantly) Iraq.

The emir, Abu al-Hool, is training jihadist volunteers in Afghanistan when he learns of Osama bin Laden’s success on 9/11. He is troubled because he does not believe that killing women and children is the right path. But he also knows that innocents die in war (Hiroshima being a profound example). Americans set the tone with the dismissive phrase “collateral damage," providing at least partial justification, he thinks, for the killing of non-combatants. He also belives that “great men tend to inhabit the extremes of thought, and that is one reason for their greatness.”

The most interesting chapters follow Abu al-Hool through his political struggles. He is astonished that Bush was so easily goaded to invade Iraq, playing into bin Laden’s hands. Having grown old, having lost his son in Chechnya, Abu al-Hool has no desire to take jihad to Iraq, but the choice is not his.

Abu al-Hool considers himself a freedom fighter, which is what Reagan called fighters in Afghanistan who resisted Soviet invaders, using the same techniques that now earns them the label “Islamofascists” and “terrorists.” Abu al-Hool still approves of the ancient and time-honored technique of beheading enemies, but he is no longer sure that his colleagues are employing the technique in a just way.

Other chapters follow Cassandra Wigheard, who starts the novel with mortars rain down on her Humvee. During the first half of the novel, the story jumps around in time, providing Cassandra’s background (from Kansas to Kuwait) as well as Abu al-Hool’s. Eventually she is in a position to fear becoming a propaganda tool for the jihadists.

A third point of view appears in the second half. After Wigheard and two other soldiers are taken prisoner, Sleed is among the soldiers assigned to look for them. He is also among the soldiers who, through dereliction of duty, is partially responsible for causing the problem.

Bad judgment is basically the story of America’s incursion into Iraq, along with killing innocent civilians. Those are both on display in a novel that makes no attempt to disguise the bleak reality of the environment in which the story is set. Bad judgment drives all sides of the conflict.

Spoils is notable for refusing to portray characters in a simplistic light. All people fall on a continuum of good to bad, often occupying shifting points along that continuum, and that is true of the characters in Spoils. A reader won’t necessarily sympathize with Abu al-Hool, but Brian van Reet makes it possible to understand his conflict, and to view him in a more positive light than terrorists who engage in jihad with no regard for the moral teachings of their religion. It is much easier to feel sympathy for other key characters, including a young boy who does the bidding of the jihadists and the American soldiers who, despite their imperfections, are fighting a senseless war not because they are evil, but because their president put them there.

The story is powerful, gritty, believable, and insightful. It establishes a vivid sense of place, portraying Iraq in multiple dimensions from a variety of senses. The voices that tell the story are genuine; the reader rarely has the sense of an author lurking in the background, manipulating the scene or the characters. I haven’t seen any other novel that captures so well the swirling entanglement of good and bad in the American conflict with Iraq. As all war literature should do, Spoils illuminates that conflict in all its glorious idiocy.

RECOMMENDED

It's 2003 and I'm in Iraq watching while a young female American soldier is captured, an only slightly older male American soldier is elsewhere learning the truth of war, and a seasoned mujahedeen finds his brothers becoming much more radicalised.
Oh hang on, no I'm not there. It is a book. It didn't really happen. It is a book. It is a book. It didn't really happen. Did it...?

I'm not a the usual war-story reader and even less so modern day warfare, so it surprised me to no end how much I loved this book. And isn't that the best kind? It is about war, but it is much more than that. The way Van Reet is able to immerse you into this time period and these lives is remarkable. I guess there is nothing like first hand experience to draw on the senselessness and humanity of war.
The story plays out like a film in front of your eyes and I really hope that one day this is made into a film that does it justice and moves audiences, the way that Hurt Locker did.

I recommend this book to anyone that likes to read. Don't be put off by the fact it is a "war" book. Just go and read it.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to NetGalley and to Lee Boudreaux Books for a preview copy of this book.

This is a modern day war story, unlike most others I have read. Flipping back and forth between the opposing sides one hears the narrative in a very different manner. Having a strong female character, showing the human side- of both sides, makes a strong statement. No one wins. Van Reet has combined the stories of the people involved, allowed the reader to feel the fear, the sorrow, the humanity and the evil of the characters. Excellent book.

Had a very hard time getting into this book. I could not finish it. Not great character development.

An absorbing and authentic thriller set during the 2003 Iraq war. The story alternates between three different points of view and this makes it a bit jarring at the beginning but once the voices become clear, the technique is effective in showing the utter chaos on all sides. US soldier Cassandra Wigheard's perspective is the most compelling by far, but it was also fascinating to get inside the head of the very articulate jihadist, Abu. Not an easy read, nor a light one, but the story will stick to your ribs. Well done.

Thank you, Netgalley, for the e-review edition of this book.

I sought out SPOILS to read after seeing an introduction to the book by its author, Brian Van Reet, an Iraq War veteran, and I don’t think I could write a better description of his war novel “for people who don’t read war novels” than he did on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPYt54hpBvM
As he says, the book is not just about fighting but about the three main characters who adapt and are shaped by extreme situations and contains things that will surprise, delight and trouble. It accomplished all three.

Visceral, vicious, and real. Right off the bat Brian Van Reet's style reminded me of Phil Klay's similar if more oblique <em>Redeployment</em>, and both authors coexist in the same general milieu of real-life veterans writing about real-life wars. But something about <em>Spoils</em> grabbed hold even tighter, squeezed harder, sucked the air out of my chest (like a bullet-punctured lung) within the first few pages. Having just spent far too long slogging through a technically beautiful but dreadfully overwritten near-future SF novel, the immediacy of Van Reet's prose felt like sweet relief—the perfect cold beer after a long, shitty day, total refreshment with a hint of oblivion. Despite that immediacy, his prose is sneaky—beyond just the subtle movements of plot and sharply drawn characters, this guy can actually <em>write</em>. Sometimes I'd tear through a few dozen pages on my commute home—it's easy to blaze through this book if you let yourself—and I'd feel the need to go back over a perfect turn of phrase or a new way of saying something. On top of that, the editing is shockingly tight, something I've come to really appreciate having spent years editing others' work (both for a music blog [yay] and a legal journal [ugh]). The prose is lean but fluid, clean spirals of text with jagged edges like little coils of razorwire (only Van Reet would call it "concertina" and make it sound even better).

I've read a few commercial reviews that nailed why this book was great—strong prose, authentic voice, tight plotting, nails the senselessness of war from both sides—but they all went too far in revealing the actual story, so I won't do that here. Suffice it to say that the book is dark, and bad things happen, as they do in times of war. What keeps it all afloat is the sense of real beating-heart life within each of the characters. By and large they exist in the minutiae of daily life in Iraq, removed from the grander machinations of the war but fully subject to its whims, down in the shit where any given moment could have them laughing about something someone said or did, or worrying about dying by IED or worse. Most of the time they're stuck somewhere in the grimy gray in-between of daily survival. Don't come in expecting heroism.

So why 4 stars, not 5? I wish the book kept going! I loved the time spent with each of the main characters and wish I had even more—it wouldn't have been hard to rip through another 50 or 100 pages easily, which is something I never say. The ending has gotten attention from a few other reviews as one of the key highlights, and I agree—but I felt like the climax came sooner than I was hoping, signaling the mildest of structural issues, just not one that really interfered with my enjoyment of the book. This isn't even a criticism so much as an expression of my own greed as a reader. I want more, more, more of this, and I hope Van Reet has more to come soon.

3 and a half stars
It feels like this book should be some kind of masterpiece. Maybe it is, who knows.

The book follows the story of 3 different people, Cassandra, a 19 year old soldier who is captured and held prisoner, Abu al-hool, a mujahideen who has a crisis of conscience and is struggling to be a part of the new wave of radicals he travels with, and specialist Sleed, a tank crewman who makes a very bad decision and has to reep the conequences. All of these stories eventually connect and make for a fairly powerful read albeit a slow one at that.

The problem the book has is that just when it seems it is picking up pace, it switches to another character and loses a bit of its momentum. Obviously as it all connects you know what is coming but you have to read it from 3 different perspectives and it becomes a bit of a slug.

The best character for me was Cassandra. You really do feel the horror she goes through as a POW. The constant fear of knowing what will no doubt eventually happen to you but not knowing when it is coming is a terrifying thought and it was these chapters that packed the most punch. Unfortunately the other two characters stories arent half as interesting as hers, Sleeds in particular. Also after all the tension and build up i felt the ending fell rather flat. Still this isnt a bad novel by any means and it does pack a punch, particularly in one rather horrific moment.

I do not usually find war stories to my liking but Spoils is the exception. The characters are authentic, the plot is executed perfectly, and it is an emotional and challenging read no matter where you stand politically. The strength in this text is that it is not merely about war crimes but about people, relationships, and cultural aspects that are nuanced and insightful.

Spoils

A novel by Brian Van Reet

“Spoils” is the Iraq conflict distilled down to its essence. It is an unflinching look at who fights our wars, how they are fought and who the enemy is. There is no glory, no jingoism, or happy ending here.

Three voices describe the events; Specialist Cassandra Wigheard, a U.S. Army Military Policewoman; Abu Al-Hool (Father of Dread), a war-weary mujahideen veteran; Private Sleed, a tank gunner, new to the Army and war.

The story begins with Wigheard and a group of Military Police guarding a roundabout outside Bagdad. The unit comes under mortar and small arms attack from Al-Hool and his brethren, who overrun the position. Taken prisoner by the jihadis, Wigheard, and her team are locked up in an abandoned water plant.

After the initial firefight adept use of shifting time segments allows Van Reet fully flesh out his characters, and the forces driving them. His style is crisp and reflects the eye of an astute observer. The scenes of the awful and inhumane treatment meted out to those unfortunate enough to be taken as POW by the mujahideen, while also exploring their humanity, are exceptionally vivid.

The author, a veteran of the Second Gulf War, has in his first novel given us a dose of reality. I don’t think I have ever read a better fictional “war” story. Very highly recommended for aficionados of the genre.

I received an advance digital copy of this novel from Little, Brown and Company and NetGalley in exchange for this review.

Spoils takes readers into the Iraq war, stripping away the facade of accepted views of the enemy and the justification of war to reveal the complicated reality.

Debut author Brian Van Reet knows his subject. He left university to enlist in the U. S. Army after the September 11 attacks, serving as a tank crewman in Iraq and earning a Bronze Star for valor. After his discharge, Van Reet returned to his studies and to writing.

From the viewpoint of the American characters, we learn of the hardships and boredom of war, the crazy randomness of violence, and the gap between the reason and the reality of war.

The Iraqi characters shed light on the history of the conflict and the changing nature of jihad under extremists and after America invaded Iraq.

"I always had an idea of what the Americans would be like. But they are different than I thought. They're just people."
"There comes a time for each of us when we realize the truth about the enemy. Which is that he is not an idea, or some faceless demon. He is a man. And every man is much like ourselves."

Cassandra Wigheard is a nineteen-year-old American soldier serving as a tank gunner. She is aware of the gap between the political hype about Operation Iraqi Freedom and the reality that the army's purpose is to kill and destroy. She joined the army to be different, to "escape a hard life for one she hoped would be harder." She is appalled by the rape of another female soldier, and at her fellow soldier's callousness.

Abu Al-Hool is a dedicated mujaheddin who sees radicalized jihadists taking over. He left his privileged life to join something bigger, to shape the world. Now, with the murder of women and children and the rise of Osama, he questions his place in the jihad. Dr. Walid, a leader whose motto was "Jihad and the rifle alone," is taking over power.

Sargent Sleed joined the army to find a 'higher purpose,' but instead makes bad decisions, causing the deaths of Iraqi civilians, which he covers up.

Cassandra is captured by the group led by Dr. Walid and Abu Al-Hool, leading Al-Hool to make a fatal choice.

There is no sensationalizing of war, no graphic details of violence. My reaction was more intellectual than visceral. But that makes me happy--I can't read graphic violence.

The publisher writes,"Depicting a war spinning rapidly out of control, destined to become a modern classic, Spoils is an unsparing and morally complex novel that chronicles the achingly human cost of combat."

That about sums it up for me.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.