Whitney Terrell's remarkable novel of the Iraq War The Good Lieutenant literally starts with a bang as an operation led by Lieutenant Emma Fowler goes spectacularly wrong Men are dead
- one a young Iraqi by her hand Others of the casualties were soldiers in her platoon & the signals officer Dixon Pulowski Pulowski is another story entirely
- Fowler & Pulowski have been lovers since they first met at Fort Riley in Kansas From this conflagration The Good Lieutenant unspools backward in time as Fowler & her platoon are guided into disaster by suspect informants & questionable intelligence their very mission the consequence of a previous snafu in which an American soldier had been kidnapped by insurgents We hear the voice of Lieutenant Fowler but also those of jaded career soldiers & Iraqis both innocent & not so innocent Ultimately as all these stories unravel Terrell reveals what can happen when good intentions destroy experience distorts & survival becomes everything