Last One in

Jimmy Stephens makes the worst mistake of his career as a gossip columnist when he wrongly accuses a big star of cheating on his wife. With lawsuits pending, Jimmy's imperious new editor blackmails him into taking the place of the paper's injured front-line war correspondent. Shipped off to the desert and embedded with a group of foulmouthed but fraternal Marines, Jimmy provides a bewildered but unfiltered view of the invasion of Iraq that is alternately hair-raising, hilarious, and heartbreaking.

In 2003, Nicholas Kulish was embedded with a Marine attack-helicopter squadron for the Wall Street Journal. He is an editorial writer at the New York Times and has also written for the Washington Post, Washington Monthly, and ESPN magazine. He lives in New York City.