Night draws near, by Anthony Shadid

An Arab-American reporter in Irak both before and after the war... Details how the US gov't bungled the "liberation" of Irak ending up FOOBAR and the reactions of many Iraqi people at the same time xenophobic, expecting prosperity to be delivered by the US army and tired of so many wars and decades of oppression.
Could be shorter.
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The Big Nowhere, by James Ellroy

A maelstrom of ambition, violence and perversion where nothing is what it seems and every ideal is turned on its head. Dark but superb, if slightly disgusting.
I wonder how close/how far it is to the historical truth?
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