Don’t be led astray by the airport novel-ish cover, or the sensationalist-sounding title. This ABC foreign correspondent’s memoir of four eventful years covering the Middle East is much smarter than it looks. The title refers to the view from Mark Willacy’s urbane Israel apartment, which overlooks the place (actually named The Valley of Hell) where Old Testament child sacrifices were made. It’s an apt metaphor for his time in Israel, where an imported European café society lived alongside crumbling villages, where one side fought with state-of-the-art weaponry and helicopters, and the other with home-made bombs and stones hurled by children. This is the setting of one of our most contemporary conflicts; one with its roots in ancient times. Broadcast journalists don’t always write well, but Willacy does. What’s more, he (seemingly) effortlessly translates the informed but conversational tone of his broadcast reports to the page, resulting in a book about an incredibly complex topic that is easy to digest and engrossing to read. Willacy was in the Middle East from 2002 to 2006, and his postings covered the 2002 Palestinian Intifada and the current Iraq War, as well as countless telling moments and small conflicts-within-the-conflicts that illustrate the larger story of the contemporary Middle East.

Jo Case is editor of Readings Monthly

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