Small Wars

Starred review from October 19, 2009
In her excellent second novel (after The Outcast
), Jones sets a couple down in turbulent 1956 Cyprus as the Cypriots seek union with Greece and resist British rule. British army major Hal Treherne is dispatched to Cyprus, taking along his wife, Clara, and their young twin girls. There, they fight separate, but equally maddening, battles—Clara as an army wife with babies in an increasingly dangerous land, and Hal on the front lines where, yearning for firefights, he is instead haunted by his lack of control when torture and rape occur at the hands of his own men. While Hal dodges mortal danger, Clara tries to keep the homefront together, struggling to remain supportive of him as she remains isolated with the twins and he is tormented by the violence he witnesses. After Clara narrowly avoids death, Hal makes a split-second decision with powerful implications for their future. The narrative is excruciatingly tense and also graced with real emotion as a marriage is pushed to the brink and loyalties are stretched and broken. It's the perfect mix of poignant and harrowing.

May 31, 2010
Save for a tendency to drop his voice on the last syllable of each sentence, Stephen Hoye is a perfect narrator. His clear, dramatic voice engages an audience quickly and fully in this tense and moving story of the agonizing dilemmas of young Major Treherne, who faces increasingly conflicting duties to his men, his country, his wife and twin daughters, but also to the enemy's men and boys so badly brutalized by his own troops. Set in 1956 Cyprus during the bloody British battles against Greek Cypriots, this is a fine story, carefully hewn and beautifully narrated, that resounds poignantly with the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A Harper hardcover.

December 1, 2009
Jones debut novel, The Outcast (2008), won the Costa First Novel Award in Great Britain. In her sophomore effort, she deploys the same coolly dispassionate style in a novel about how the demands of war warp human emotions, both for the soldiers and the women who love them. Hal Treherne is a major in the British Army transferred to Cyprus in the 1950s, where he is joined by his wife, Clara, and their twin daughters. Although Hal is eager to enter the fray after years spent performing routine training exercises, he is unprepared for the moral quagmire that is Cyprus. In a war resonant of the current conflict in Afghanistan, homemade roadside bombs are the weapons of choice, and they are often planted by preteen boys. Torturous interrogation methods, brutal retaliation by frustrated British soldiers, and an inflexible army hierarchy conspire to undermine Hals dedication. Meanwhile, Clara becomes increasingly afraid of her husband, whom she no longer recognizes. A thought-provoking meditation that powerfully evokes both the costs of waging war and the loving bonds of marriage.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)

November 15, 2009
Another intensely buttoned-up British scenario from Jones, who shows a marriage and a belief tested during the Cyprus Emergency.

The Outcast (2008), her powerfully visualized, emotionally devastating debut, portrayed a loner in postwar England. This follow-up focuses on a couple, Major Hal Treherne and his wife Clara. A career soldier known as a decent and fair man, Hal is posted in January 1956 to Cyprus, where colonial forces endure random bomb attacks and shootings by guerrillas seeking union with Greece. Clara and their twin daughters join him on the British base, but the two adults' lives quickly diverge to run on parallel tracks. She is confined to the roles of wife, mother and sexual partner, while his responsibilities revolve around life-and-death military operations. Jones ably delineates in clipped, cool detail the divided male and female experiences: tense domesticity versus ineradicable encounters with blood and terror. Hal's conscience is pricked by one of his subordinates, Lt. Davis, who reports that during a poorly organized mass roundup he observed the unprovoked shooting of a civilian and the rape of two women by British soldiers. Col. Burroughs, who ordered the roundup, disparages the witness and reprimands Hal. The gulf between his integrity and the military's slippery pragmatism forces Hal finally to risk everything he previously held dear.

A darkly compelling account of honor and disillusionment with contemporary resonance, less wrenching than Jones's first novel but nevertheless a confirmation of her considerable talent.

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Starred review from December 15, 2009
Worlds away from the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, this stunning new novel from Jones (after the highly regarded "The Outcast") set in 1956 Cyprus might just as easily describe the present. In the lead-up to the Suez Canal crisis, the British occupational forces find themselves amid a terrorist campaign conducted by the EOKA, a group of Greek Cypriots set on independence at any cost via pipe bombs, rock throwing, land mines, and roadside ambushes. For their part, the British employ equally familiar counterinsurgency torture and interrogation measures to maintain order. Against this backdrop, career officer Hal Treherne and his family settle into life on the base, where Hal is charged with routing out terrorists. The daily skirmishes take a toll on Hal and undermine his marriage. VERDICT This richly imagined and warmly atmospheric story convincingly demonstrates that small wars, like all wars, are hell. This is historical fiction at its best. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 9/15/09.]Barbara Love, Kingston Frontenac P.L., Ont.

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.