I absolutely adored this book. It took me a while to give my review because I decided to read it in chunks but it’s something I am going to re read over and over. Walsh offers a beautiful view of Pakistan in all shades - the good, the bad and the incredible. Through our nine characters we gain a new perspective on Pakistani culture and experiences in tumultuous times.

A very well written, eye-opening, and engaging recent book on Pakistan. A travel book, memoir, and history rolled into one, it is as enjoyable as it is enlightening.

The author tells stories from his time as a foreign correspondent in Pakistan so as to shed light on its politics, crime, terrorism, and geography. He is writing about a country that many in the West do not understand, but few would doubt Pakistan's relevance after reading this book.

Written in a journalistic style, this book will make the reader appreciate Pakistan's importance and want to learn more about it. Walsh makes clear that Pakistan's terrorist groups, nuclear weapons, and diplomatic feuds have direct impacts to the lives of tens of thousands. He shows how the country's military policies have impacted, to an under-appreciated degree, the war in next-door Afghanistan.

Walsh's coverage canvasses a wide range of colorful characters too, from tribal leader in Pakistan's wild west to a former prime minister. It is about as good an introduction to a country as you can get in 300 pages.

Declan Walsh compresses his several years' of living and reporting in Pakistan into an excellently exhaustive, in-depth and up-to-date look into a nation long-suffering from a perpetual identity crisis along numerous internal fault lines, yet still continues to carry on with an almost impossible resilience.