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Horn of Africa

by Philip Caputo

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1744156,473 (3.74)5
When Vietnam veteran and foreign correspondent Charlie Gage is recruited by the shadowy Thomas Colfax to assist with something called Operation Atropos, he has no idea he is about to be enlisted for guerilla warfare in northeast Africa. Once he realizes he’s a mercenary, however, he is not at all concerned. Ever since his young secretary was killed by a grenade at their bureau office in Beirut a couple of years before, he has lost all volition. Which is why he so readily capitulates not only to Colfax, but also, and more dangerously so, to every command of Jeremy Nordstrand, the mystical megalomaniac determined to achieve greatness on their seemingly suicidal mission. Set in the forsaken yet exotic deserts of Ethiopia, Horn of Africa is a vividly detailed and masterfully plotted novel chronicling a broken man’s struggle for salvation and inner freedom in the midst of a broken nation’s fight for stability and peace.… (more)
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Showing 4 of 4
A methodically paced novel about a small team of three down and out ex-military men hired by a rogue CIA agent to help bolster the efforts of a civil war within the fictional province of Bejaya squeezed between the Sudan & Ethiopia.

It's certainly a rather dark story pertaining to the seedier side of human nature and the depths to which some people will go in order to find and/or challenge themselves.

Wasn't terrible but I wasn't particularly enthused either, in parts it felt like a lot of sentences and description was used to say not a lot. That being said, it was still, a reasonable story of mercenary work in Africa with an ending that fitted the book's story. ( )
  HenriMoreaux | Jan 22, 2020 |
Just a super read. Caputo takes you along on a Cold War spy mission in a war-torn country where a small group of CIA operatives are headed to train the locals in modern weaponry. ( )
  vincent287 | Sep 13, 2008 |
I stumbled upon this book at the library while it was still out of print. I thoroughly enjoyed it - a good example of the action-adventure novel that delves into Graham Greene ethical conflict territory. Since reading it I've read almost everything by Caputo. ( )
  flemingt | Jul 18, 2008 |
Horn of Africa is Caputo's best novel. It echoes Heart of Darkness in telling the tale of an ill-conceived and illegal CIA operation in a fictional African country that sounds very much like Sudan. Told from the first-person perspective of one of the mercenaries, it's a terrific read.
  BruceAir | Jul 25, 2006 |
Showing 4 of 4
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When Vietnam veteran and foreign correspondent Charlie Gage is recruited by the shadowy Thomas Colfax to assist with something called Operation Atropos, he has no idea he is about to be enlisted for guerilla warfare in northeast Africa. Once he realizes he’s a mercenary, however, he is not at all concerned. Ever since his young secretary was killed by a grenade at their bureau office in Beirut a couple of years before, he has lost all volition. Which is why he so readily capitulates not only to Colfax, but also, and more dangerously so, to every command of Jeremy Nordstrand, the mystical megalomaniac determined to achieve greatness on their seemingly suicidal mission. Set in the forsaken yet exotic deserts of Ethiopia, Horn of Africa is a vividly detailed and masterfully plotted novel chronicling a broken man’s struggle for salvation and inner freedom in the midst of a broken nation’s fight for stability and peace.

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