Author:Stephen Grey
Coming up to Christmas, and reporter Stephen Grey is embedded with B Company, 2 Yorks, in southern Afghanistan during Operation Snakebite. Their mission: to take the Taliban stronghold of Musa Qala. For some this battle will be their last.
In the thick of the fighting, Grey provides a breathtaking boots-and-bullets glimpse of combat chaos as British, American and Afghan forces struggle to secure a dusty little desert town known to be crucial to the drug trade.
Operation Snakebite reveals everything you need to know about the brutal conflict in Afghanistan: from the political infighting and bureaucratic interference to the frontline troops soldiering on with unsuitable gear and poor intelligence.
Exemplary. An uncommonly vivid portrait of battle, matched by sharp investigation of purposes, intrigues and cock-ups
—— Max Hastings , Sunday TimesSuperb, fast-paced. Captures the grit and the gore, the exhaustion and emotion, the killing and the dying. A fine piece of war reporting
—— Raymond Bonner , GuardianGrey manages to get across the chaos and the hellish fear experienced by those under fire at the sharp end of battle. Will long outlast the events it recounts
—— Sunday HeraldThe fear, the courage, the uncertainty, the gut-wrenching personal tragedies and the sheer mayhem of two days' intensive fighting is frequently more vivid than any film. Terrific
—— Misha Glenny , Mail on SundayA fascinating insight . . . a catalogue of doubt, criticism and anger
—— David Crouch , Financial TimesA revealing, exceptional piece of reportage
—— Michael Smith , New StatesmanAn entertaining study of power and personality portrays the strutting absurdity and grotesque glamour of the last emperors on the eve of catastrophe
—— Simon Sebag Montefiore , Financial TimesFascinating. Carter is a gifted storyteller and has written a very readable account
Carter's intelligent, entertainging and informative book folds dynastic and political narratives into a panoramic account of Europe's road to war
—— London Review of BooksThat these three absurd men could ever have held the fate of Europe in their hands is a fact as hilarious as it is terrifying. I haven't enjoyed a historical biography this much since Lytton Strachey's Victoria
—— Zadie SmithMiranda Carter writes with lusty humour, has a fresh clarifying intelligence, and a sharp eye for telling details. This is traditional narrative history with a 21st-century zing. A real corker of a book
A highly original way of looking at the years that led up to 1914
—— Antonia Fraser , Sunday Telegraph Books of the YearCarter deftly interpolates history with psychobiography to provide a damning indictment of monarchy in all its forms
—— Will Self , New Statesmen Books of the YearA depiction of bloated power and outsize personalities in which Carter picks apart the strutting absurdity of the last emperors on the eve of catastrophe
—— Financial Times Books of the YearTakes what should have been a daunting subject and through sheer wit and narrative élan turns it into engaging drama. Carter has a notable gift for characterisation
—— Jonathan Coe , Guardian Books of the YearFacts and figures say a great deal, but the most compelling accounts come from those who featured in the battle. Like any good author, Holland allows the participants to tell the story in their own words
—— The Good Book Guide
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