When the Nines Roll Over & Other Stories by David Benioff

…”How old were you the first time?”

“The first time I shot someone? Nineteen.”

Leksi nodded and opened his mouth, but forgot what he had meant to say. Finally, he asked, “Who were we fighting back then?”

Nikolai laughed. “How old do you think I am, Aleksandr?”

“Thirty-Five?”

Nikolai smiled broadly, flashing his crooked teeth. “Twenty-four.” He pressed the poker’s tip against the base of Leksi’s skull. “Here’s where the bullet goes.”

From “The Devil Comes to Orekhovo” as included in When the Nines Roll Over

I can be a literary snob when I have to be. I’ll admit that critically praised contemporary fiction is never something I go out of my way to jump on. You’d sooner catch me reading a forgotten receipt than something sitting on a grocery store book shelf. Why? I just feel that a lot of great writing goes unnoticed, and it’s my job as an active member of the literary community to give the lesser-knowns a run when I can. Besides, if something truly is great I will eventually come back to it, later, at a time when just mentioning it in public won’t cause four-hundred people to start spewing hollow opinions (ex. see Invisible Man and The Stranger below). But When The Nines Roll Over eventually weaved its way onto my bookshelf.

David Benioff captures the nuances of situation better than most seasoned novelists (though Benioff himself is no complete amateur, having written the novel and screenplay for The 25th Hour, and the screenplay for Troy), and is able to extract, and more importantly, impart empathy with absolute nonchalance.