Spencer Quinn

"A deeply damaged female soldier home from the war in Afghanistan becomes obsessed with finding a missing girl, gains an unlikely ally in a stray dog, and encounters new perils beyond the combat zone."--Provided by publisher.

A Novel

The Right Side

Janice Hopper

When I got to the end of this book, I sat very still for a minute. Then I just said "wow" a few times. This one will stick in my mind.

LeAnne Hogan had plans. She'd had plans to go to West Point and become an officer and maybe a pole-vaulting star. But her plans changed.

LeAnne enlisted in the Army. After two tours, she had plans for civilian life. But she got talked into coming back for one last special tour. And her plans changed.

LeAnne suffered during the war. She's suffering after the war. But she had a goal she wanted to accomplish, and almost in spite of herself, she goes for it.

This is not one of those books where the soldier comes home and is healed through the love of friends and family. Not everybody gets a happy ending. BUT IT DOESN'T MATTER. You do what you have to do, the best you can, with whatever time you have. That's what LeAnne did. It doesn't hurt that she had a slightly magical dog show up to help her. (NB: there's no actual magic involved. The dog just appears mysteriously and occasionally seems to know things that she'd have no real reason to know. But it's actually a pretty good dog portrayal aside from that.)

I found LeAnne to be a believable and compelling character. It's all her story, some of it told in flashbacks to her time at war, some of it in the present day. She's fierce and uncompromising and damaged, but goddammit, she does everything she can.

I loved this book. LeAnne will stay with me a long time.

The Right Side A Novel

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