The Monkey House

In The Monkey House , Sarajevo is a city besieged by the atrocities of war. Stadium walls that once shook with the roar of Olympic crowds have since collapsed under the screams of artillery. Police Superintendent Rosso and the ragtag remains of his Sarajevo police force, however, remain dedicated to preserving what is left of the city's civil order. In their Sisyphean quest to uphold the law, one of their key informants is mysteriously murdered in a narcotics-infected Serb apartment complex called the "Monkey House." If the homicide is proven to be the work of Sarajevo's notorious crime boss, Luka, solving the case could break the black marketeer's grip on the city. But bringing Luka to justice could also drastically change the course of this relentless war and quite possibly lead to the fall of Sarajevo.

For Rosso, a Croat whose Serbian wife is losing a battle with alcoholism and whose Moslem goddaughter may be having an affair with Luka, this case has become a life mission, not only to defeat a formidable enemy and to save his family and city, but also to redeem his own dark and bloody legacy. In The Monkey House the stakes are high for solving a wartime murder, and a young, cocky American journalist named Branson Flett is there to report it all.

The Monkey House navigates a complex web of international politics and propaganda, supplying a ground-level view of the Bosnian conflict through a tale as real and hard as the war itself.

As a journalist, John Fullerton has covered twelve wars in twenty-five years, including the struggle between Croatia and Serbia in 1991 and the subsequent separatist conquest of much of Bosnia.

Fullerton was born in Dorset, England, and educated in South Africa. He has worked as a farmer, stockbroker, soldier, and foreign correspondent spending most of his time in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East often during periods of conflict where he was usually at the front line.

Although The Monkey House is fictional, its atmosphere and setting are based on his coverage for Reuters of the 1991 Croatian war and five subsequent reporting assignments in Bosnia during the 1992-1995 campaign.

The Monkey House is Fullerton's first novel. He lives in London, England.