The Verdun Affair

17 of 19
The Verdun Affair
304 pages; Scribner
In the aftermath of World War I, a former ambulance driver gathers the bones of dead soldiers to piece together their identities, and comforts relatives who've come to France to learn the fate of their loved ones. Grief looms, shadowlike, over this beautifully calibrated novel, which recalls the work of Anthony Doerr and Michael Ondaatje.
— Hamilton Cain