My major work engagement yesterday (Thursday) was a very intense meeting with the gentleman on the right. He is in his mid-fifties, the president of an unrecognised former Ottoman territory, traditionally Muslim but very secularised, which has been historically locked in conflict with its Orthodox Christian neighbours and is currently mired in a UN-brokered peace process which appears to be going nowhere very fast.
I’m not too worried about getting typecast, since as far as I am aware there are no other former Ottoman territories in that position.
(No points for working out who the two gentlemen are – if you are reading this, you know what sort of work I do!)
The plot’s good, but I wish his editor had made him take out all the technical details about what electronic devices people were using. It doesn’t add verisimilitude, it just suggests he was being paid by the line. And it will look really dated in about five years.
I have to admit I also thought that the author is a bit too keen on describing sexualised violence in loving detail for me to be totally convinced by it as a Great Feminist Work. But perhaps I would feel that less strongly if someone hadn’t sold it to me on that basis…