In 1915, as many as one and a half million Armenians were systematically murdered across Anatolia by order of the Turkish-dominated Ottoman government. Eric Bogosian's grandfather survived the genocide and filled his grandson's childhood with terrifying stories of "burning churches and sadistic horsemen," instructing him: "If you ever meet a Turk, kill him." It is unsurprising, then, that Bogosian has written a history so full of grief and righteous anger.
Operation Nemesis: The Assassination Plot That Avenged the Armenian Genocide focuses on a small group of Armenian men who between 1920 and 1922 assassinated six Turks and Azerbaijanis who had orchestrated the genocide, and Bogosian (Perforated Heart) provides more than enough background to give pathos to the assassins' mission. These young men, broken to various degrees by the extent of their suffering, killed as an "existential pronouncement to the world that the Armenians were not sheep."
Operation Nemesis is not merely a stirring account of well-justified revenge, however. Bogosian complicates the narrative by questioning whether the assassinations helped the Armenian cause in the long run. Even though the dramatic murders and ensuing trials brought attention to a great crime that the Turkish government was--and is--eager to bury, the decades since have left the matter unresolved. For now, Bogosian suggests, we must respect the innocent dead and honor the few desperate men who fought for justice. --Hank Stephenson, bookseller, Flyleaf Books