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Dog Days
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.
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.
352 pages, Paperback
First published August 5, 2002
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 18, 2020
I very much enjoyed Jeffrey Lee's The Butterfly Man, so was really looking forward to reading Dog Days. Unfortunately, I was to be extremely disappointed.
It is undoubtedly nicely written. However, if reads more like an autobiography or documentary than a thriller. Dog Days follows a film producer during his preparation for making a documentary film on the death of a young nurse in Upper Guinea, an area torn apart by inter-tribal fighting. It then continues as he and his small team shoot footage and investigate her death in the country itself. A slight mystery develops regarding who actually killed the nurse and whether it was someone closer to home than one of the tribesmen. However, that wasn't enough to pull me through the extremely slow story line.
In my whole life, I think I've only ever once given up on a book, but by 200 pages in, I was skipping whole paragraphs, and shortly after, I sadly put this one down for good.
I had expected a thriller, but Dog Days comes across more as non-fiction narrative. As it says on the back cover, "the most authentic account of what it's like to be in a war zone." That's probably true, but unfortunately it doesn't make for a page-turning thriller.
It is undoubtedly nicely written. However, if reads more like an autobiography or documentary than a thriller. Dog Days follows a film producer during his preparation for making a documentary film on the death of a young nurse in Upper Guinea, an area torn apart by inter-tribal fighting. It then continues as he and his small team shoot footage and investigate her death in the country itself. A slight mystery develops regarding who actually killed the nurse and whether it was someone closer to home than one of the tribesmen. However, that wasn't enough to pull me through the extremely slow story line.
In my whole life, I think I've only ever once given up on a book, but by 200 pages in, I was skipping whole paragraphs, and shortly after, I sadly put this one down for good.
I had expected a thriller, but Dog Days comes across more as non-fiction narrative. As it says on the back cover, "the most authentic account of what it's like to be in a war zone." That's probably true, but unfortunately it doesn't make for a page-turning thriller.
December 24, 2019
A seriously good book.
I've had to turn to an Erica James novel now just to get some sanity back.
I've had to turn to an Erica James novel now just to get some sanity back.
April 10, 2014
A journalist is sent to Upper Guinea to produce a documentary on the murder of a young aid worker. Although the story itself is fictional, I felt like a lot of the writing was rather relevant and reflective of the type of news stories we see (and ignore) everyday. Perhaps it's because the author is a foreign correspondent but the book was full of insightful (and believable)glimpses of a war-torn country, from the bribes to the Western media's need for a 'good guy vs. the bad guy scenario to working out body-count figures. The background info was, sadly, very believable and I felt like the author's own experiences might be underwriting it all. For me, the most interesting part was reading the development of the journalists (aka 'the pack') holed up in their hotel. I can imagine their hunger for action (verging on maddness), their shaping of the news stories to fit their own requirements and the jaded veteran journalists versus the young and idealistic being just like that in real life war-zone reporting.
December 27, 2014
Set in war torn guinea, follws a BBC crew making a doco about an attractive British aid worker who was killed. Naturally involves the media pack and the things they do to get their story.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews