While listening to National Public Radio a few months back I heard about an interesting book called Merchant of Death by these two journalists. It chronicles the rise of a business empire owned by a Russian named Victor Bout. Bout is about as close to a real-life Lord of War (awkwardly played by Nicholas Cage) as you'll ever get. His myriad of companies specialize in air cargo, but somehow his planes always seem to be carrying some kind of weapons to parts of the world where people are eagerly killing one another (Sierra Leone, Liberia, Angola, Congo, Afghanistan, etc.).
The book itself is incredibly illuminating. The reporting is about as objective as I've ever read and chronicles in minute detail the inner workings of this gun running enterprise. It's frightening to think of how all this went on under the noses of the Western world while they were all busy patting themselves on the back for the fall of the Evil Empire.
Now, I can't give a complete review of the book at this time because I didn't quite finish it. My biggest complaint so far is that the book is as dry as the Mojave and as clinical as a prostate exam. The feel is of a series of newspaper articles glued together to make a book, which makes sense since the week after I got the book from the library I read another article on Bout in the Washington Post as written by one of the authors. I think it's because of these factors that I couldn't finish the book before it was due back at the liberry. Fear not! For I have re-reserved the book and as soon as the other five people before me are finished with it then I too shall finish it!
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