"Brave Deeds" is a riveting, disturbing war novel. Make that a war-is-hell novel. It's a book that can leave you laughing, gasping and wincing.
David Abrams' story of a band of U.S. soldiers going AWOL across Baghdad in a stolen Humvee to honor a fallen leader is both comedy and tragedy. A mechanical breakdown and a panicky response has left the squad alone in dangerous territory without a way to call for help. As things go from awful to worse, Abrams gets inside the heads of each soldier, whose thoughts are as twisty and, at times, frightening as those deadly streets.
Expect bullets, blood and beauty-and behavior that would never show up in a John Wayne movie.
Abrams writes with the authority of someone who was there. He was. He served in the Army for 20 years, including a tour to Iraq in 2005 as part of a public affairs team. That experience fueled his widely praised debut novel, "Fobbit."