Friendly Fire tragic but a page turner

coffeed today with National Post reporter Michael Friscolanti. His book, Friendly Fire, is the story of the 2002 bombing of Canadian troops by an American F-16 pilot in Afghanistan. Friscolanti covered the story from day two and writes a flagrantly unbiased account of the incident/accident/tragedy. He uses the results of more than 100 personal interviews and boxes of classified documents to let the players tell the story in their own words.

The result of Friscolanti's even-handedness is that I still can't decide if Major Harry Schmidt, who dropped the 500-pound, laser-guided bomb, is a victim or a murderer. I lean toward murderer (what part of "hold fire" did he not understand?) but you should read it and make up your own mind.

The first half of Friendly Fire is so gripping that, even though I knew what happened and who died, I couldn't put it down. This is journalism as it should be. Friscolanti shows every player warts and all, unspins the details, and lets the reader decide.