"This is a gray universe where it's difficult to distinguish the good guys and gals from the bad, and it rings true to those of us who have spent time in these places. . . . will stick with you." --NPR, Best Books of 2020 [This] compact epic of a novel contains perhaps Klay's finest writing yet . . . Using his formidable gifts for scene-setting, meaningful irony and deep human empathy, Klay weaves together a set of stories over the course of nearly three decades . . . Amid raging fires and illness and constitutional crises, Klay's book roars something vital: Never forget about war or the blood and bone and the evil and the reckless idealism of who we all really are. --Los Angeles Times
"[This] astounding novel . . . does not shy away from the thorny moral questions and psychological impacts of conflict, and the result is at once terrifying and thought-provoking." --The New York Times "Wrenching and insightful." --The New Yorker "Thorough, forceful, and ambitious . . . Missionaries is a deeply ethical novel, and one that often pauses to question the purpose of war and possibility of redemption for combatants of all kinds. It is also a very well-built narrative . . . Klay is able to write kidnapping and murder without sensationalism; he never loses track of his moral questions, even while toggling between interiority and thriller-paced action. He maintains clarity through a sequence of events so intricate and scenes so populous that the vast majority of writers -- great ones included: John Le Carré is often guilty of this -- would forfeit the reader's understanding. Most importantly, Klay tends well to his many characters, giving each not only a voice, but a resolution . . . by the end, its humanity, like its purpose, is clear." --NPR.org.
