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A review by robthereader
Missionaries by Phil Klay
4.0
Part political thriller, part expose on the global military industrial complex, Phil’s Klay Missionaries is a novel that looks at conflict and its generational impacts through the eyes of four different and distinct characters. Lisette is an American journalist tired of her ticker lines from Afghanistan not moving the needle or getting much readership back home. Mason is a former spec ops medic turned American government liaison tired of firefights and looking for a good war, not a losing one. Juan Pablo is a colonel in the Colombian military with a history of fighting messy wars with and against guerilla, paramilitaries and now possibly narcos all while trying to be a father to a daughter who is not afraid to question her country’s and family’s past. Finally, Abel is a former paramilitary lieutenant trying to make amends for his sins through an honest living that gets upended when his former boss makes a return.
Together, these four characters get implicated in a shift in policy by the Colombian military as it seeks to take control of the American intelligence apparatus that the police have been using in hope to neutralize the narcos threats. The Colombian government is also voting on a peace accord with the FARC rebels that aims to grant amnesty to those that have committed crimes against humanity in hopes of lesser violence. Looming further in the background, the US government is trying to learn and replicate the tactics used in Colombia in its other forever wars. This shapes Juan Pablo and Mason’s relationship as a mixed codependency where one wants access to technology and intelligence to continue to fight for the honor of his country while the other seeks information and lessons for how to continue to fight for the honor of his country but with hopefully better results and less meaningless violence.
Klay’s writing style allows for jumps between each character. At first, they each get their own chapters and we are given access to their stream of consciousness in first person. This allows the reader to see how they interact with other secondary characters such as the menacing drug lord Jefferson, the brave faced NGO worker Lisa, the curious daughter Valencia, the washed up mercenary Diego and the combat veterans of Mason’s company. These interactions each revolve around past and present violence for the protagonists and the first person omniscient narrative lays out how violence grips the mind and how each processes it. In a way, the four protagonists are all victims and evangelists of it. The book changes gear in its third act and climaxes when all four protagonists’ fates bring them together leading to a switch to third person story telling. This causes a loss in personal understanding for each but grants the reader an insight into how war grips people in big and small ways and how even large apparatuses such as the military can be led astray in confusion.
The epilogue closes the book with Juan Pablo having taken up a contractor position in the Arabian peninsula. He notes how all the technologies and strategies used and honed in Afghanistan and Colombia have come together to commit mass violence against tribes people who threaten big oil and thus the world at large. His work is now removed from seeing bodies yet he realizes his actions have the same consequences in that a target acquired from a drone camera is still a future funeral.
Together, these four characters get implicated in a shift in policy by the Colombian military as it seeks to take control of the American intelligence apparatus that the police have been using in hope to neutralize the narcos threats. The Colombian government is also voting on a peace accord with the FARC rebels that aims to grant amnesty to those that have committed crimes against humanity in hopes of lesser violence. Looming further in the background, the US government is trying to learn and replicate the tactics used in Colombia in its other forever wars. This shapes Juan Pablo and Mason’s relationship as a mixed codependency where one wants access to technology and intelligence to continue to fight for the honor of his country while the other seeks information and lessons for how to continue to fight for the honor of his country but with hopefully better results and less meaningless violence.
Klay’s writing style allows for jumps between each character. At first, they each get their own chapters and we are given access to their stream of consciousness in first person. This allows the reader to see how they interact with other secondary characters such as the menacing drug lord Jefferson, the brave faced NGO worker Lisa, the curious daughter Valencia, the washed up mercenary Diego and the combat veterans of Mason’s company. These interactions each revolve around past and present violence for the protagonists and the first person omniscient narrative lays out how violence grips the mind and how each processes it. In a way, the four protagonists are all victims and evangelists of it. The book changes gear in its third act and climaxes when all four protagonists’ fates bring them together leading to a switch to third person story telling. This causes a loss in personal understanding for each but grants the reader an insight into how war grips people in big and small ways and how even large apparatuses such as the military can be led astray in confusion.
The epilogue closes the book with Juan Pablo having taken up a contractor position in the Arabian peninsula. He notes how all the technologies and strategies used and honed in Afghanistan and Colombia have come together to commit mass violence against tribes people who threaten big oil and thus the world at large. His work is now removed from seeing bodies yet he realizes his actions have the same consequences in that a target acquired from a drone camera is still a future funeral.