What Will Survive

The plight of Lebanon, just emerging in 1997 from a decade of civil war, is the fascinating historical backdrop to this novel that begins with the death of an Englishwoman, Aisha, in a landmine accident near the town of Nebatiyeh. Once the woman is identified as a minor celebritya fashion model with an Egyptian motherin England reporters rush to the family's Somerset home to follow up rumors that link the death to Princess Diana's high-profile campaign for a ban on landmines. When a young feature writer is sent to Beirut to further pursue the story, she finds herself trapped behind the lines of a bloody conflict between Israeli troops and the Syrian-backed terrorist organization Hezbollah. Realizing that thousands of ordinary Lebanese are still trapped between the two enemies, she suddenly sees a much larger storyone in which Aisha is simply the victim of a disturbing new wave of violence that is barely mentioned in the British press. Writing her story, the reporter vows to see that justice is won for Aishaand for Lebanon.

Joan Smith is a writer known for her lively and controversial weekly columns in The Independent and The Independent on Sunday, and she frequently writes for several other British periodicals. She is the author of Misogynies and Moralities, as well as five crime novels, two of which have been made into films by the BBC.