Charlie Johnson is a veteran war correspondent who thinks he has seen it all until he makes one rash expedition into a Balkan war zone. He watches helplessly as a woman who sheltered him is set on fire. From then on, his life is consumed by the mission to find the man who did it, caught on film by his friend and cameraman, Jacek.

Drawing on his own experience of war zones, Michael Ignatieff probes the damage that blights Charlie’s life and threatens to destroy his humanity, the result of years of reporting terrible events. Charlie has people who love him—his family in London, and generous, tough colleagues like Jacek and the indefatigable and beautiful Etta. But once he sets out on his journey of revenge, nothing and no one can stop him.

Michael Ignatieff is a Canadian writer and historian. His books include Scar Tissue (which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize), The Russian Album, Blood And Belonging, The Warrior's Honour, The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror, and The Rights Revolution. His work has been translated into many languages and awarded numerous prizes and awards. Before being elected as a Liberal Member of Parliament in 2006, he was Professor of Human Rights and Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University. Until May 2011 Ignatieff was leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. He lives in Toronto, where he teaches at the University of Toronto.

Michael Ignatieff's profile page

"With empathy and precision, Ignatieff puts a human face on the mind-numbing statistics and reports that are pumped out of war-torn areas around the world like blood from a severed artery." —Toronto Star

"Enormously powerful." —The Edmonton Journal

"Ignatieff blends blunt physical description with sympathetic, but never naïve, psychological exploration…. The story's repeated smooth shifts from present to past give it a hallucinatory quality that highlights the insanity of Charlie's wars." —Winnipeg Free Press

"Ignatieff … writes with much of the intelligence, suppleness and originality he brings to television reporting." —Literary Review of Canada

"Charlie Johnson is a short but intense novel." —Sun Times

"Taut and full of drama." —Vancouver Review