One of President Obama's Favorite Books of the Year A New York Times Notable Book One of the
Wall Street Journal Ten Best Books of the YearMissionaries is a courageous book: It doesn t shy
away as so much fiction does from the real world. Juan Gabriel Vásquez The New York Times
Book ReviewA sweeping interconnected novel of ideas in the tradition of Joseph Conrad and
Norman Mailer . . . By taking a long view of the rational insanity of global warfare
Missionaries brilliantly fills one of the largest gaps in contemporary literature. The Wall
Street JournalThe debut novel from the National Book Award-winning author of RedeploymentA
group of Colombian soldiers prepares to raid a drug lord's safe house on the Venezuelan border.
They're watching him with an American-made drone about to strike using military tactics taught
to them by U.S. soldiers who honed their skills to lethal perfection in Iraq. In Missionaries
Phil Klay examines the globalization of violence through the interlocking stories of four
characters and the conflicts that define their lives.For Mason a U.S. Army Special Forces
medic and Lisette a foreign correspondent America's long post-9 11 wars in the Middle East
exerted a terrible draw that neither is able to shake. Where can such a person go next? All
roads lead to Colombia where the US has partnered with local government to keep predatory
narco gangs at bay. Mason now a liaison to the Colombian military is ready for the good war
and Lisette is more than ready to cover it. Juan Pablo a Colombian officer must juggle
managing the Americans' presence and navigating a viper's nest of factions bidding for power.
Meanwhile Abel a lieutenant in a local militia has lost almost everything in the seemingly
endless carnage of his home province where the lines between drug cartels militias and the
state are semi-permeable.Drawing on six years of research in America and Colombia into the
effects of the modern way of war on regular people Klay has written a novel of extraordinary
suspense infused with geopolitical sophistication and storytelling instincts that are second to
none. Missionaries is a window not only into modern war but into the individual lives that go
on long after the drones have left the skies.
