In this monumental novel, Deni Ellis Béchard explores the personal impact of America’s imperial misadventures.

Kabul — 10 years after 9/11: When a car bomb explodes in a crowded part of the city, a Japanese-American journalist is shocked to discover that the vehicle’s passengers were acquaintances — three fellow ex-pats who had formed an unlikely love triangle. Alexandra was a Canadian human rights lawyer for imprisoned Afghan women. Justin was a born-again Christian from Louisiana who taught at a local school. Clay was an ex-soldier who worked as a private contractor. The car’s driver, Idris, one of Justin’s most promising pupils, is missing. Convinced the events that led to the fatal explosion weren’t random, the journalist is determined to uncover why these three people were targeted, and who is responsible.

In vivid and evocative prose, Deni Ellis Béchard brings to life the city of Kabul, along with the people who live there: the hungry, determined, and resourceful locals who are just as willing as their occupiers to reinvent themselves to survive.

Deni Béchard's first novel, Vandal Love, won the 2007 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book. His articles, stories, and translations have appeared in a number of magazines and newspapers, including the National Post, Maisonneuve, Le Devoir, the Harvard Review, and the Harvard Divinity Bulletin. He has done freelance reporting from northern Iraq as well as from Afghanistan, and he has lived in over 30 countries. When he's not travelling, he divides his time between Montreal, Québec, and Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Deni Béchard's profile page

Daredevil journalists, amoral mercenaries, and assorted foreign do-gooders . . . Their stories are told vividly in [Into the Sun] by Deni Ellis Béchard.

Quill and Quire

Béchard writes with a perfect balance of surgical prose and philosophical inquiry. . . . The action is gripping, but what really propels the narrative along is a simmering, growing tension. . . . a hell of a good story.

Globe and Mail

Into the Sun, Béchard's latest novel, is a masterful blend of the best of long and short fiction techniques and proof of an exceptional imagination.

The Ottawa Review of Books

An insightful and affecting look into the lives of those who risk everything to help the people of Afghanistan and tell their stories.

Kirkus