The Girl in Green

Written by Derek B. Miller

Narrated by Will Damron

1991. Near Checkpoint Zulu, one hundred miles from the Kuwaiti border, Thomas Benton meets Arwood Hobbes. Benton is a British journalist who reports from war zones in part to avoid his lackluster marriage and a daughter he loves but cannot connect with; Arwood is a midwestern American private who might be an insufferable ignoramus, or might be a genuine lunatic with a death wish-it's hard to tell. Desert Storm is over, peace has been declared, but as they argue about whether it makes sense to cross the nearest border in search of an ice cream, they become embroiled in a horrific attack in which a young local girl in a green dress is killed as they are trying to protect her. The two men walk away into their respective lives. But something has cracked for them both.

Twenty-two years later, in another place, in another war, they meet again and are offered an unlikely opportunity to redeem themselves when that same girl in green is found alive and in need of salvation. Or is she?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Highbridge Company
• Release date: Jan 3, 2017
• ISBN: 9781681684727

Derek B. Miller

Derek B. Miller is an American novelist, who worked in international affairs before turning to writing full-time. He is the author of five previous novels, all highly acclaimed: Norwegian by Night, The Girl in Green, American by Day, Radio Life and Quiet Time (an Audible Original). His work has been shortlisted for many awards, with Norwegian by Night winning the CWA John Creasey Dagger Award for best first crime novel, an eDunnit Award and the Goldsboro Last Laugh Award. How to Find Your Way in the Dark was a Finalist for the National Jewish Book Award and a New York Times best mystery of 2021.  Derek B. Miller is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College (BA), Georgetown (MA) and he earned his Ph.D. summa cum laude in international relations from The Graduate Institute in Geneva with post-graduate work at Oxford. He is currently connected to numerous peace and security research and policy centers in North America, Europe and Africa, and he worked with the United Nations for over a decade. He has lived abroad for over twenty-five years in Israel, the United Kingdom, Hungary, Switzerland, Norway and Spain.

Reviews for The Girl in Green

[blogbrarian · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Witty dialogue and vivid scenery made this an interesting and fast read. The author has his Ph.D. in international relations, so there were some chapters that read more like an NPR investigative report. In general, this was an enjoyable read.

[castlelass · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Family saga set in Florida in a small town near St Augustine. I picked this up after reading Laura Lee Smith’s Ice House several years ago (which I loved), but this one is not in the same league. I found it long and dreary. The characters are an unlikeable bunch. It is mainly about life in a small town, where developers want to buy up the land and turn it into a tourist trap. I could not muster much enthusiasm for it.

[amylee39 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Witty dialogue and vivid scenery made this an interesting and fast read. The author has his Ph.D. in international relations, so there were some chapters that read more like an NPR investigative report. In general, this was an enjoyable read.

[kmmt48 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I loved Norwegian by Night, still think about Sheldon Horowitz on some days, and I loved this book too. It is a totally different story and done just as well. The location of Iraq, during two different periods of our involvement in the country, meshed well together. Even if some of the situations and actions of the two protagonists are a little unbelievable, it is a novel of fiction with a satisfying story line that you are drawn into in the first chapter.The first two reviewers have given a detailed synopsis of the book so no need to reiterate the plot line. However, the character of Arwood is every bit the unlikely hero that Sheldon was in Norwegian by Night. Derek Miller is an exceptional novelist and I look forward to his next book as well as his next subject for that book.

[ozzer_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

THE GIRL IN GREEN works well as a pretty good thriller, but better as a commentary on how the good intentions of the West in the Middle East were subverted by incompetence. Following the Gulf War, soldiers were forced to sit around and watch Saddam Hussein’s soldiers massacre thousands of Kurds and Shia Muslims. The cold blooded execution of the girl in green by a Baathist colonel serves both as a striking metaphor for the West’s passivity in the face of this atrocity and as a source of guilt for the two protagonists of the novel— Thomas Benton and Arwood Hobbes.This murder was only one of several images highlighting a level of incompetence reminiscent of Joseph Heller’s iconic anti war novel “Catch 22.” Indeed there is no shortage of other images of ineptitude. We are treated to an hilarious scene depicting an Air Force airdrop of frozen chickens onto starving Iraqi refugees and aid workers; Arwood’s inability to receive much needed psychological counseling because that benefit was reserved for those “not really needing it;” an incompetent junior officer berating Arwood for daring to get involved in local matters following his heroic rescue of Benton and attempt to save the girl in green; and soldiers helplessly standing around while a child is trapped in a minefield. Innocent children seem to be Miller’s most compelling image.The true heroes of this novel are the humanitarian relief workers, primarily represented by Märta Strom, a Swedish Red Cross agent who has been stoically working to salvage shreds of humanity under the most adverse and dangerous of conditions for the two decades covered by the novel. She also plays a key role in rescuing the two protagonists when they embark on a risky and quixotic mission to rescue another girl in green 22 years following the original execution. Miller’s choice to set the main action of his novel 22 years following the original murder is inspired for three reasons. First, it highlights how the original Middle Eastern intervention by the West never resolved anything. In fact, it exacerbated the terror, giving rise of ISIS, accompanied by threats of torture, intimidation, ransoming, roadblocks and random executions. Second, the protagonists have evolved. Hobbes is now a gunrunner, still located in the Middle East, and Benton is a 63-year-old burnout in a failing marriage and unable to connect with his adult daughter. Third, a 22 year hiatus congers images of the famous “Catch 22.”Both Benton and Hobbes are fully realized and nuanced characters that travel arcs. In 1991, Benton is ambitious and curious about ferreting out the truth of events in Hussein’s Iraq following the Gulf War. In 2013, he is reluctant to get involved in Hobbes’ harebrained adventure to rescue a girl in green he saw on a video and believes is the same one they could not save in 1991. Hobbes is aptly named for Thomas Hobbes, the political philosopher who maintained that government was the main bulwark between society and chaos. In “Leviathan,” Thomas Hobbes described what he called man’s “natural state” that would evolve in the absence of political structure with words that are eerily evocative of the Middle East today (“…continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”). Arwood Hobbes starts as a naive private from the American heartland who evinces a strong sense of honesty and honor. He may be quite brave, or just reckless and a little insane. These latter traits lead to a general discharge from the Army and, following some floundering, a career as a gunrunner. Miller taps into his experience in Iraq to give us a thriller that is both darkly humorous and iconoclastic. Obviously he feels strongly about the mistakes that were made in the Middle East and occasionally becomes a little too didactic. Yet he provides a thrilling story and refrains from providing facile answers.

[beamis12 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Exploring the many different agencies, the political nightmare of trying to understand the many different cultures and the religious beliefs of each, Miller has invented two very unique and quite likable characters, Arrowood and Benson. When they first meet the Gulf War has ended, at least ended as far as the United States is concerned, now turning to a peace keeping role, but as far as the infighting between the different tribes are concerned, there is no peace. Arrowood Hobbs, a young private in his early twenties, is guarding the northernmost end of the American Zone, Zulu, it is here he meets Benson, a journalist embedded with the army. Before the day is over a young boy will be saved and a young Iraqi girl in a green dress dead. This death will have serious effects on both of these men and their future lives. They will reunite twenty years later because of another girl in green. A ill advised quest for redemption. Written with a great deal of ironic humor, pop references abound, a book that highlights the absurdity of war. So much to understand in the Middle East, and this book shows how little is understood, despite many agencies and their efforts. It is at times an edge of your seat thriller, a political nightmare, an a PR challenge. What we see on television is only what they want us to see, not too surprising. I loved these characters, all of them, well except for the bad guys of course, they are unique, well intentioned and just trying to save as many as they can. We also see how the first event, led these two memo to the lives they led.A wonderful, well written story that has once again reiterated how little we know about the various cultures, tribes, affiliations in the Middle East. Meddling in things in which we never should have gotten involve. At times reading this book, this was confusing, but I loved the main story and on that is what I focused. The author is well qualified, and has a unique understanding of this region as one can see if they read his bio. Fascinating, informative and another great offering from this author.ARC from publisher.

[smik_3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I was fortunate enough to be sent a paper copy of this by the publisher some time back, and then a follower of my blog reminded me that I should read it.Can I say that I wouldn't really classify this as crime fiction, although crimes are certainly committed in their thousands.One reviewer has described it as a "moral thriller", and given recent efforts to free Mosul from ISIS, it is certainly a topical read. In 1991 Operation Desert Storm was declared a success and peace was thought to have been achieved. But now 25 years later, a whole generation has grown up in a war-torn landscape. 40 years ago I travelled through Iraq before the war began.THE GIRL IN GREEN puts the story of the last 25 years into human language, when Arwood Hobbes, an American soldier discharged at the end of Operation Desert Storm, and British journalist Thomas Benton, try to go back into the past. Hobbes in particular wants to wreak his own form of justice.The events of the book demonstrate in particular how difficult it will be to re-establish peace in the Middle East.