In the early part of the day, the desert is still dry and very hot. Putting aside all thoughts of the heat and the flies, Nizam keeps going. Pushing herself along on the little cart, she has traveled far, from the mountains down here to the desert area. Her hands are bloody from propelling herself and the stumps that are what are left of her legs cause her almost unbearable pain, but she can not stop. She is on a mission and she will not stop until it is done.

The war in Afghanistan has raged on and on. Nizam's family have all perished, some were with her when the blast killed them and Nizam lost her feet. Her brother was the only one left of her family when he and his companions set off to storm the army post fort. Nizam had received word through the survivors that her brother was dead. As she is the only one left in her family she must be the one to prepare him for burial.

The soldiers at the fort are all upset by her arrival. It is not often they are faced with a woman alone and who has the courage Nizam does. The soldiers are there to stop the Taliban and they don't know what to think or what to do when they hear Nizam's story.

Is she telling the truth? Is she only there to give her brother a proper burial? The captain is wary and fears she is not what she says. The men feel guilty and want to help her, but are ordered not to. When she slaughters a lamb for the Captain and he and his men go outside the fort to receive it, Nizam's hand moves quickly to slice a thin wire underneath the lamb! Time stands still for a moment...

The story was told in a unique way. We hear Nizam's story first, and then we move to the Lieutenant who tells the story from his perspective, then we hear from the medic, Ismene, the lieutenants, the sergeant and finally the Captain, all telling the story from their point of view up to Nizam slicing the wire.

I found it very interesting and a great change of pace to hear the story from all the different perspectives.

The characters were really great, all different, and the descriptions of all the different scenes was very well done.

I'm not quite sure if the lack of quotation marks was deliberate but because they were not there throughout the whole book, it didn't affect my enjoyment of the story.

A great read on how the war in Afghanistan has affected the Afghans and the soldiers who are there to try and help. Also if you are looking for a book that has a unique way of telling the story, this is a good book to read.

All in all a really solid book that is intriguing, sad and very hard to put down.

I won my copy on GoodReads and my review was unsolicited.