In Derek B. Miller's sophomore novel, The Girl in Green, he follows two unlikely heroes on an errand of mercy in one of the most dangerous places on Earth: modern-day Iraq. During the uneasy ceasefire following the first Gulf War in 1991, American soldier Arwood Hobbes meets Thomas Benton, an older British journalist, in the midst of the "industrial and inescapable" boredom at his post 150 miles from the Kuwaiti border. Cocky and determined to get a local perspective on the Shiite rebellion, Benton takes Arwood's semi-dare to sneak over to a nearby town to interview Iraqis. When violence strikes and Arwood steps in to rescue Benton, the two try to save a Kurdish girl in a green dress, but are unable to stop the teen's murder at the hands of a Ba'athist colonel. Arwood and Benton both lose a part of themselves when the girl dies.
Twenty-two years later, Benton hears from an agitated Arwood, who believes he just saw the girl in green, un-aged and in the same dress, in an Internet video of a mortar attack on refugees in Kurdistan. Arwood is convinced that the universe has granted them a chance to right a terrible wrong.
Miller (Norwegian by Night) pulls off an amazing feat of alchemy here, because this chronicle of trauma, violence and endless conflict is the unlikely feel-good story of the year. Not only does he pepper the narrative with enough absurdist humor and one-liners to keep readers helplessly grinning at the darkest moments, he hits points of emotional resonance with the precision of a sniper. --Jaclyn Fulwood