Vertigo

In the final pages of this disquieting and enthralling book, journalist Momolu Sengendo confronts a man whose face is wrapped in blood-stained bandages, insisting that "violence answered with violence" offers no hope and no end. The journalist, whose task is to report on the sensational and still-unfolding story of this mysterious man willing to wage a personal war against the forces of the Lord's Resistance Army, finds himself acting as a kind of conscience. His comments echo words he heard earlier, as part of an interview with a pacifist physician, Dr. Lwanga Moses; Uganda-born but raised and educated in America, Lwanga has returned to offer medical aid to the people of war-torn Acholiland. Yet this spokesperson for peace, carrying with him a photograph of Somali activist Abdulkadir Yahya Ali and preaching about the responsibility to "change Africa . . . without violence," encounters one too many child victims of mutilation and snaps.

Sengendo's service as conscience is a necessary counterpoint to the voice that wakes inside Lwanga's head when he runs into the jungle after child soldiers who took a machete to a toddler's face. This voice is anything but a voice of conscience. Forced to kneel, the barrel of an assault rifle pressed against his forehead, tears streaming down his cheeks, Lwanga hears someone inside his head, whispering advice: "He's too close to use the rifle effectively." The concerns of this voice are practical—tactical and strategic—not moral. It rattles off technical details about land mines, talks Lwanga through the most effective means to remain unseen, to seek to cover, to kill. "Brutalize the enemy," it says. "Stay aggressive. Instill fear. . . . go kill every last one of these little monsters."

Read the full review of UNKNOWN SOLDIER VOL. 1: HAUNTED HOUSE!