10 best books of February: the Monitor's picks

These are the February titles that most impressed the Monitor's book critics:

Steve Coll expertly unravels the adventures and misadventures of the principal powers and individual actors throughout the uneven arc of war in Afghanistan and Pakistan that has spanned decades. “Directorate S” is the sequel to Coll’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Ghost Wars,” which tracks the key players and events across Central Asia, the Middle East, and the United States that