The Protector — Duncan Falconer

Three men: an Iraqi, a former coalition soldier and a journalist, drive together from Baghdad towards Fallujah as the US Marines encircle the city to take it apart. It seems the men are on a single mission to seek a recent kidnap victim, but in truth all three have very different aims in the besieged town, and each keep a dark secret from the others. Greed, ambition - and guilt - are what separates their individual motivations, but a single miscalculation could bring an end to them all . . .