The Wolf Of Sarajevo, Palmer - B

                                               In his third book, Palmer turns to the Balkans, specifically Bosnia-Herzegovina, a hell hole of religious and ethnic conflict decades after the Dayton Accords. The Bosnian Muslims,  the Croatian Catholics and the Serbian Orthodox Christians hate each other and the fact that they are tied together in an ungovernable artificial state. The focus of the story is an attempt by the UN to broker a deal to avoid a second conflagration. Opposed are the Serbs in a province looking to create havoc and secede from B-H. The Serbian leader has turned against the deal, because he is being blackmailed. Who is blackmailing him? Whose side is the State Dept. on? Even more important - whose side is the CIA on? This is a solid read with a goodly amount of historical background provided. Whenever reading about the Balkans, their blood-soaked history going back centuries, Turk versus Christian,  Hapsburgs v. Ottomans, and everybody lost in medieval superstition and hatred, I think of Bismarck. The Iron Chancellor purportedly stated that the Balkans weren't worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier.