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The eBook was FREE at all retailers from April 7th - July 15th, 2024 to commemorate the hundred days of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. #NeverForget
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"There’s plenty of sharp, suspenseful action to savor here in this impressively poignant, hauntingly realistic, and searingly moving tale. Schafer intensively explores themes of racism, violence, war, and human welfare. Vivid, boldly written, life-affirming historical fiction drawn from the horrors of the Rwandan genocide crisis." —Kirkus Reviews
In response to the worldwide epidemic of genocides and to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide, Suanne Schafer has issued a second edition of Hunting the Devil, revised and with a new Author’s Note. The electronic edition will be free from April 7 through July 15, 2024, the hundred days the 1994 genocide lasted.
When biracial physician Jessica Hemings volunteers for a medical mission in Rwanda, she becomes entrapped in the maelstrom of Rwandan politics and the enmity between Hutu and Tutsi. Her US passport doesn’t afford the security she’d hoped for as her Tutsi-like features plunge her into horrors of the Rwandan Genocide. Dr. Cyprien Gatera, Jess's superior and a Hutu militant, commandeers her clinic, forces her to treat his wounded, and then slaughters her patients and her adopted sons. She escapes and finds refuge at Benaco refugee camp in Tanzania.
There, beset by grief, hatred, and PTSD, Jess vows revenge. With the help of Michel Fournier, a French lawyer-turned-war-correspondent, and Dr. Tom Powell, her ex-lover, she searches for Gatera who has fled Rwanda to escape post-genocide reprisals. When an unknown informant passes information to Jess about her nemesis, she returns to Rwanda, despite warnings from the Belgian Secret Service that Gatera plans to assassinate her. In their final showdown, Jess must decide if revenge is best served cold or not at all.
Part medical procedural, part global political thriller, part vigilante novel, and part fractured romance, Hunting the Devil moves from the dusty washboard roads of Rwanda to an inner-city hospital in America to the Natural History Museum of Belgium to the halls of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania as it deftly traces one woman’s journey toward justice.
-Acclaim-
“There’s plenty of sharp, suspenseful action to savor here in this impressively poignant, hauntingly realistic, and searingly moving tale. Schafer intensively explores themes of racism, violence, war, and human welfare. Vivid, boldly written, life-affirming historical fiction drawn from the horrors of the Rwandan genocide crisis.”
“Hunting the Devil brings genocide forward like a machete whishing from behind you in the night.”
“A moving journey of self-discovery and empowerment in the face of unimaginable brutality. Your mind and soul will not come away unscathed after reading this book. It will change you. Profoundly.”
“One of the best books I have read in a very long time. I cannot recommend this book highly enough, but be warned, it is not for the faint-hearted and the haunting scenes faithfully reflect what could and did happen and is still happening in more than one country right now. Hunting the Devil might shock you and shake you out of your daily cotton wool cocoon, but it’s true to life, and I applaud the author for bringing the horrendous subject of genocide to light.”
“In vivid and deeply textured scenes, Suanne Schafer creates a compassionate and strong female physician who endures horror and becomes a witness in the UN genocide trials, bringing justice to Rwandan victims. Hunting the Devil’s ‘eyewitness to history’ approach is by turns enthralling, horrifying, and ultimately heartbreaking.”
“Hunting the Devil is a tightly-written, riveting novel layered with finely-crafted characters, the exploration of racism, and the horror of war’s effects on individuals. Schafer has crafted an exciting tale that culminates with a daring climatic courtroom scene that will resonate and remain with readers long after the last page.”
“Someone told me Hunting the Devil was a tour-de-force and while I agree, I think that summary needs a few more words. Gut-wrenching. Honest. Powerful. This is a story of a woman who claws her way back from the worst kind of adversity with no explanations and no apologies. Schafer pulled me in and kept me enthralled to the very end.”
“This gripping novel travels the highs and lows of humanity and keeps readers on the edge of their seats. With powerful scenes and the ability to artistically weave the beautiful with the traumatizing, Ms. Schafer has written a novel that transcends time.”
I had so much fun doing a big, beautiful, artsy bookish giveaway haul last month, I've decided to do it again! This time, I'm upping the ante by including a $10 Amazon gift card in one of the prize combos. It's only on for eight days, so enter while you can... Good...
All Who Wander is a fascinating look at the long-term effects of insufficient love, emotional and physical abuse, as well as poor choices in relationships and life in general. Brooke, trapped in a broken family (one that’s missing a mother but has an added stepbrother...
Wisdom Corner is the second in the Virgil Wounded Horse mystery series. Like its predecessor, Winter Counts, it is set on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota and picks up where that novel left off. Virgil has become an “enforcer,” administering justice when...
Cleopatra does a remarkable job piecing together the story of a woman from the first century BCE about whom very little is actually known. Schiff pulls together many early sources, extrapolates as many facts as she possibly can, then pieces them into a coherent vision...
I LOVE Elif Shafak’s work and am working my way through her twelve novels. With every read I find a new favorite, but There Are Rivers in the Sky is my all-favorite so far. The book opens in 630 BCE, in Ninevah, the capital of the ancient Assyrian Empire along the...
As I have been with so many other authors, I am slowly working my way through Ann Patchett’s oeuvre, starting years ago with Bel Canto. Whistler ties with Tom Lake as my—so far—all-time favorites of her works. Tom Lake is a quiet story. Whistler tells of a family...
I have been slowly working my way through Larry McMurtry’s oeuvre. The Berrybender Narratives brings together the four volumes of the epic story of the American West: Sin Killer, The Wandering Hill, Sorrow’s River, and Folly and Glory. In these books, he sets the...
Poison is about the intertwined fates of a Spanish commoner and a queen born on the same day and year. Set in 1692, the bicentennial of Columbus’s discovery of America, it features the worst of Spanish life at the time: the dreaded Inquisition. Spain is now a bankrupt...
Winter Counts is a gritty multi-award winning mystery set on South Dakota’s Rosebud Indian Reservation and written by an enrolled citizen of the Sicangu Lakota nation. I enjoy both thrillers and Native American novels, so this was right up my alley. The hero (or...
As always, I love books about art, art history, and Italy, so I enjoyed reading The Secret Courtesan. Mia Harding is an art historian sent from the States to certify a fellow art historian’s identification of a statue called “The Estasi” (the Ecstasy) as being by a...
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