This Way to Heaven

In this powerful action novel based on Foley's travels through wartime Bosnia, protagonist Robert Jackson is an American gun smuggler trying to do the right thing in a conflict in which almost everyoneDSerbs, Croats and the indifferent WestDseems to be in the wrong. Jackson's smuggling operation makes him a criminal in the eyes of the UN, in whose military force he once served. The U.S. turns its back on him, too, preventing him from ever returning home to be with his fianc e, Maria. Trapped in Eastern Europe, he concentrates on providing Bosnian Muslims with the arms they sorely need, aided financially by Israeli diplomat Abram Katz. Jackson's breathless adventures begin when Katz sets him up with assassin Samuel West, who is on a mission to end the war and needs Jackson to guide him into Serbian territory. With his colorful partner Zarko, Jackson leads West north into the jet black heart of ethnic hatred and uninhibited barbarity, which Foley unflinchingly documents. From the relatively safe haven of Dubrovnik, the three journey farther inland to villages under bombardment, now effectively Muslim ghettos. The residents are either slaughtered or forcibly taken, as Jackson and West are, to Serbian concentration camps like Omarska, where women are raped and men brutally tortured before being killed. While employing his considerable narrative powers to manipulate multiple plotlines, Foley objectively presents the Balkans' political and historical complexities, slipping behind the Maginot line of statistics and political spin to make plain the terrible human suffering of the men, women and children afflicted by the conflict. (July)