Relapse: The Cost of War is the sequel to the military warfare novel A Failed State by Andrew E. Coussens. In that novel, readers met Damien Collins, a member of an elite intelligence-gathering team determined to stop the spread of ISIS, and followed his adventures in Afghanistan, including what happened when his mission went wrong. .
As Relapse opens, Damien is back in the States dealing with his pending divorce and a protective order against him that prevents him from seeing his daughter. Meanwhile, his comrade and friend, known as “Loki”, is in an Afghan prison as a result of his failed mission. Damien has a lot to worry about, including frequent endings of anxiety that lead him to seek help from a psychiatrist. He too is back at work, training in the US for his next mission.
Written in the third person, the novel alternates scenes with Damien and Loki’s experiences in prison. Loki’s wife and son are of course worried about him, so after the US government’s intervention, it’s a relief to them when Loki is finally freed and can return home. However, Loki’s problems do not end there. He is dealing with his own ends of PTSD. Since his family lives in a remote area, one would think there would be little to trigger his PTSD, but he becomes frustrated with his wife and things only get worse when he finds his neighbor dead and realizes that a Mexican cartel of the drug has moved. to his backyard.
Due to the bond Loki and Damien share, when Loki realizes that he needs help, Damien comes to his aid and they practice some vigilante justice against people who threaten Loki’s house. However, the biggest threat to both of them may be the demons within them as they seek to adjust to civilian life at home. Those demons may finally destroy their friendship.
Coussens writes without embellishment, telling a tough but sensitive story about real-life characters based on the military personnel who fight for this country every day. Coussens’s personal military experiences influence the story, as is evident from the military terms used, and add a higher level of realism to the novel, both in the action scenes and through the depiction of the characters’ emotions. These are men fighting to keep it all together in a world that isn’t always fair to its military heroes. The depictions of their marital relationships are especially well done and will make readers identify with both Damien and Loki.
At the same time, there is a lot of plot and Coussens does a masterful job of alternating scenes between the main characters while also bringing in scenes with terrorist characters so we can understand their backgrounds and motives. The pacing is strong, causing the novel to move quickly until the reader reaches the last page and is sad that the book is over. Thankfully, we’re left with a bit of a cliffhanger, a sure sign that a third book is planned.
