Half a Reason to Die

As she descends into the darkness of an earthquake-ravaged schoolhouse in northern Afghanistan, Major Grace Sommers can hear the cries of an injured child. Just beyond her arm's reach, small drops of water tap a surreal rhythm into the mud. How did she wind up here? Grace wonders. Who is she really trying to save? This is a small taste of the stark reality and eerie conflict that runs below the surface in the title story from Half a Reason to Die, a collection of eight short fiction pieces by author and documentary filmmaker Chip Duncan. Haifa Reason to Die is a highly entertaining group of stories taking the reader on a dramatic ride around the world, each piece told by first person narrators with a background in journalism. In other scenarios from Haifa Reason to Die an eccentric piano prodigy entertains the patient next to him as he lies in a New York City hospital dying of cancer, a young journalist helps solve the very cold case of a teenage biathlete murdered in the Alaskan wilderness, and an anti-abortion protestor breaks his lifelong commitment to nonviolence. Half a continent away, an elderly German woman in exile reveals her long-held secret about the lover she hasn't seen since the early days of World War II. Book jacket.