Jeffrey Lee — Dog Days

Bantam 2003 Paperback, 352pp. In the West African country of Upper Guinea civil war is brewing. Thousands have already died but it's one small and particularly savage killing that captures the media's attention - that of British aid worker Miranda Williams.Young, beautiful, selfless, Miranda is portrayed as both martyr and icon, but for disenchanted war correspondent-turned-film-maker Peter Lucas, her death conjures up uneasy ghosts from the past. The Corporation want him to return to Upper Guinea to make a documentary about the dead girl. It should be a straightforward job: go in, shoot, and get out. Fast. However Lucas's ambitious assistant producer has other ideas. Determined to make her mark amid the jostling egos of the television world, she wants to answer the questions that appear to hang over the girl's death.Suddenly, the conflict intensifies and Lucas and his crew find themselves holed up in the shell-scarred hotel that's become both sanctuary and ops centre for the psychotics, lunatics and adrenaline junkies who make up the world's media. And as they go about their business, manipulating human suffering into the stories they feel the world wants to see, they seem oblivious to a madness growing in their midst . Explosive, intelligent and utterly compelling, DOG DAYS is a thrilling, disturbing journey into the darkest recesses of the human soul and marks the début of a remarkable new literary talent. (ISBN: 9780553814996). Good.