From the author of Maps for Lost Lovers ('Extraordinary . . . It deepens our knowledge of life'� - The New York Review of Books), a new novel - at once lyrical and blistering - about war in our time, told through the lives of five people who come together in post'�9/11 Afghanistan.

Marcus, an English doctor whose Afghani wife was murdered by the Taliban, opens his home - itself an eerily beautiful monument to his losses - to the others: Lara, from St. Petersburg, looking for evidence of her soldier brother who disappeared decades before in the Soviet invasion; David, an American and former spy who has seen his ideals turned inside out; Casa, a young Afghani whose hatred of the West plunges him into the depths of zealotry; and James, the Special Forces soldier in whom David sees a dangerous revival of the unquestioning notions of right and wrong that he himself once held.

In mesmerizing prose, Aslam reveals the complex ties - of love and desperation, pain and salvation, madness and clarity - that bind these individuals. And through their stories he gives us a portrait both timely and achingly intimate of the 'continuation of wars'� that shapes our world. In its radiant language and unflinching drama, The Wasted Vigil is a luminous work of fiction.