Minor Detail begins during the summer of 1949, one year after the war that the Palestinians mourn as the Nakba-the catastrophe that led to the displacement and exile of some 700,000 people-and the Israelis celebrate as the War of Independence. Israeli soldiers murder an encampment of Bedouin in the Negev desert, and among their victims they capture a Palestinian teenager and they rape her, kill her, and bury her in the sand. Many years later, in the near-present day, a young woman in Ramallah tries to uncover some of the details surrounding this particular rape and murder, and becomes fascinated to the point of obsession, not only because of the nature of the crime, but because it was committed exactly twenty-five years to the day before she was born. Adania Shibli masterfully overlays these two translucent narratives of exactly the same length to evoke a present forever haunted by the past.

Set amid the social turmoil of the late sixties, "Right to Kill" is a Brooklyn tale about street smart characters, loyalty, romance, gritty combat, murder, and a touch of humor - all contributing to epic moral dilemma.

A law student from a blue-collar neighborhood, Sean Cercone, puts his life on hold to join the Marine Corps. He makes his way from Gravesend, Brooklyn through Marine officer training and onto the blood soaked fields of Quang Tri. The crucible of vicious combat in Vietnam and a senseless killing back home crush his moral compass.

Sean makes a clandestine trip out of the war zone back to his neighborhood to carry out vengeful mission and subsequently returns undetected to Vietnam. Coming home a second time damaged in body and mind, his family, boyhood friends, a war widow, and a holocaust survivor all try to help him attain peace and move on with his life.

Fifteen-year-old Weston Newcomb is fairly surprised when he passes the early entrance exam into the university at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in May of 1943. But the escape from his home in Loris is welcome. Skipping his senior year at a small town high school, West is now somewhat at a disadvantage, both in youth and in education at this large university.

In his first class, he encounters a strangely antagonistic professor, a specialist in Thomas Wolfe, who complicates his life. However, his classmates give him a much broader education. Each new acquaintance seems to have lived a life startlingly different from his own. Self-centered and solipsistic but hungry for skills to serve others, West encounters a gamut of friendships as he stumbles, fumbles, and struggles toward social and sexual adulthood.

Counterpoint to his progress are the guns of World War II. Nazis have invaded Poland, the Japanese have struck Pearl Harbor, and atrocities engulf the planet. Only gradually does West perceive the importance of the war. He integrates personal growth and a discovery of authoritarianism at its worst. He experiences the dark midnight of FDR's death and the bright noon of war's end. He finds his chance for manhood in a world he must help to rebuild. West learns that war is hell, but so is growing up.

When Mark, an American soldier serving in Germany in the early 1950s, meets Lauren, a young German girl, their lives change forever. But love is never easy, and for these two it may well be impossible. In a world still reeling from the horrors of war and genocide, the budding love between a Jewish soldier and a German Catholic girl is controversial and dangerous.

It is a time in history that demands the same dedication and focus on duty as in the war years. Both of the lovers are pressured from all sides, and each feels the impossibility of their love-but neither can deny or forget it. Mark is faced with military duty, a possible court martial, and a threatening sociopath. Lauren is expected to play the role of the dutiful German daughter who follows the path dictated by her father. In addition to her obligations to her father, she is expected to focus only on school, work, her church, and her duty to country.

Their very different backgrounds stand as obstacles they can't disregard. Neither is so naive as to ignore the considerable cultural and societal pressure they face. But the heart does not always listen to logic, and soon they are irresistibly drawn together-come what may.

Despite all the many forces they face, can they find the strength to stay together in a world that propels them apart?

"Carl and I must make twenty trips back and forth carrying wounded to those who can offer comfort and medical aid. Each time I look at our litter-now covered with blood and gore-and wonder whether we've done our bit in time. Others scurry about clearing the aftermath of the battle. Burial details are already working to inter the dead before daylight and scavengers descend on this killing ground. The smell is worse than any hog butchering I was ever a party to. Already I can hear the buzz of flies and see the beady little eyes of small animals drawn to the smell of fresh blood. We stand over one soldier writhing in this "sacred ground" as the sergeant called it and lift him ever so gently onto the litter. These men's blood may make the ground sacred, but by now I can see this place for what it actually is-a sea of Virginia mud trying to clutch and claim the dying. This wounded boy wears the blue of the Feds. He's calling out a name and reaching toward me, grasping at me with his trembling fingers as I lean closer. A strange feeling of comradeship comes to me when I realize how like my own fellow soldiers this Yankee fighter looks-just another man doing his duty, whatever his beliefs may be."