Marilyn's Mystery Reads

As is well known, Syria is engaged in a brutal civil war.  It began as unrest during the Arab Spring in 2011 and since 2015 has been a multi-sided conflict fought by the Syrian Armed Forces, Sunni opposition rebel groups, Salafi jihadist groups, the mixed Kurdish-Arab Syrian Democratic Forces, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, with a number of countries in the region and beyond also involved.

In Dan Mayland’s novel, The Doctor of Aleppo, many of these groups converge on that city, leaving death and destruction in their wake.  A metropolis with a history dating from the sixth century B. C. E., Aleppo had rich architectural, religious, and cultural traditions.  But now, following years of war, it has become a war zone.

The novel follows three people whose lives are intertwined with the city and each other.  Samir Hasan is a dedicated doctor whose best efforts are hampered by a number of factors, including a lack of medical supplies, the near-constant bombs that go off frighteningly close to the clinic where he works, and his fears for the safety of his family.  Hannah Johnson, the daughter of an American mother and a Syrian father, is a volunteer with a small non-profit health organization.  Rahim Suleiman is a dedicated believer in the reign of Bashar al-Assad.

When Hannah’s Swedish lover Oskar is badly wounded he is taken to Hasan’s clinic and operated on by the doctor, one of only two orthopedists left in the city.  As chance would have it, Oskar is put in the same room as Adel, Suleiman’s injured son.  Hasan operates on Adel as well, and the boy is recovering when he unexpectedly dies.  Suleiman becomes convinced that his son’s death is the surgeon’s fault, and he determines to take his revenge.

The Doctor of Aleppo is so well-written and powerful that the reader will feel she/he is in the city.  At times I had to put the novel down because it was too painful to read, made especially so because the reader knows in reality this is Aleppo’s plight.  On each page there is sorrow and heartbreak for the lives that are lost in the battle for this country and this city in particular.  But there is also a sense of decency and courage as portrayed by Samir Hasan, the physician working in a clinic with minimal staff and nearly no supplies, and by Hannah, a volunteer who somehow cannot bring herself to leave this war-torn place and return to America and safety.  Even Suleiman’s desire for revenge becomes understandable when seen as the act of a grieving, bereft father.

Dan Mayland is a geopolitical forecaster with a specialty in Middle Eastern issues.  He is also the author of four books in the Mark Sava spy series.  You can read more about him at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.