Sandstealers

Ever wondered what it is like to work in a war zone? ‘We live more in one year than most people do in a lifetime,’ is Danny Lowenstein’s simple retort. Set in a world where life is cheap, vengeance is long and betrayals can be deadly, “Sandstealers” is a masterly thriller – infused with a deep knowledge of modern war and its witnesses.

Danny Lowenstein is a big shot war correspondent with the world at his feet. But when an interview goes wrong and he's ambushed on a lonely road in Iraq, questions are asked. Was it a set-up? And was he deliberately sent to his death by one of his own – the tight-knit group of adrenalin-addicted journalists who are supposed to be his best friends? Rachel, Becky, Kaps and Edwin are ‘The Junkies’: together they’ve been through thick and thin and seen the horrors of war. Yet theirs is also a tangled web of intense relationships and dark rivalries. Could one of them have become Danny’s killer?

All’s fair in love and war. Including the murder of a friend…

Reviews

‘Ben Brown has written a powerful novel set against the brutal backdrop of modern war. It is a gripping journey, both thriller and love story, whose real theme is the struggle for tenderness in the face of cruelty.’ Fergal Keane

‘Ben Brown has brought his years of experience as Britain’s best front-line correspondent to the writing of this novel, and it contains all the excitement and speed and understanding of the world he knows so well. He writes beautifully and convincingly and with great pace, and his characters, some of them very disturbing, come alive as you read. This is an excellent novel, and I recommend it highly.’ John Simpson

‘If his narrative rings so true and reads so vividly, it is because Ben Brown writes as he lives – as someone who has witnessed events most of us dare not even imagine’. Emily Maitlis

About the author

Ben Brown is a BBC war correspondent and presenter. For the last two decades, he's reported on most of the world's major conflicts, including both Iraq wars, the civil war in Chechnya and the break up of Yugoslavia. This is his first novel.