This is a fascinating and absorbing account of the Chechen war, told less from perspective of the media and their political analysis than from the personal viewpoint of one whose work took him into the thick of it. The author worked as a Red Cross employee during the conflict and so was on hand to see some of the worst of the suffering. The author's account vividly expresses the effects of the conflict as it hit home at the individual down at ground level. This he does through careful and, one assumes, accurate detail, while the story of the author's work itself provides the basic narrative.