Escape from Baghdad!

Dagr is a former economics professor and Kinza is a street thug who have captured Saddam Hussein's head torturer who teases a hidden bunker in Mosul filled with riches. Set during the American occupation of Iraq, the promise of riches sets this trio on a path that leads them to blood-soaked mayhem, ancient cults, mythical forces and an American soldier that's either insanely brilliant or patently idiotic.

This is a country sitting on millennia of history that has shaped it well before American soldiers left their bootprints in the sand. It is a chaotic, monstrous, absurd, tragic and frankly hilarious pulpy yarn. It left me breathless in its viciousness and surprised me constantly with each new development.