That doesn’t quite make him the “veteran journalist” of the back cover blurb —?he only turns 33 this year, and saw nothing of Aristide’s first term. His 435-page text is an exhausting read; it becomes more depressing and distressing as horror is piled on horror. By far the most vivid sections are those based on his first-hand experience. But there are long stretches when Deibert was absent from Haiti and has to rely on secondary sources: here he tends to pile report upon report until the reader can’t see the wood for the trees. X was gunned down, Y’s body was found, it was believed that . . .