The Land of Broken Toys: Kosovo (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798218586393)

JB Byrne joined the NYPD because he wanted to be a detective like his father, his brother and so many of his family. He makes a mistake while on patrol which exposes the entire police force to ridicule. Okay, anyone can make a mistake - but then he makes another when he allows a body at a crime scene he is charged with looking after to go missing. His gold shield dreams are disappearing just like the body. With his police career going down the tubes, he is ready to give up. To let everything go and start a fine chocolates business. But he needs money for that, so he takes a one-year UN policing mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) to restore order after the bloodletting that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia. $100,000 a year, tax-free-almost triple his NYPD take-home salary back in 2000.

He is surrounded by true believers in justice; he used to be one himself; he's a true believer no longer. His intentions are clear: get assigned as a field training officer, keep his head down, avoid trouble, spend as little as possible and take $75,000 home so he can leave NYPD and set up his business.

But Kosovo draws him in. Serbs or Albanians, he likes the people. He hates the revenge a small number of Albanians are taking on Serbs for what Serbs previously did to them. In particular, he wants to stop the murderous cell led by Gashi which kills not only Serbs who have remained in Kosovo but Albanians who don't share Gashi's vision of the future. And, bit by bit, he becomes a true believer once again. His moment of truth comes when Steve Hill, who has come to Kosovo for the same reason and with the same lack of belief as JB, blocks an attempt to gain evidence against Gashi because it's just too much trouble. Incensed, JB risks forced repatriation and the end of all his hopes to bring Gashi to justice. To say nothing of separation from Alexandra, the North Macedonian woman who was the first person he's ever considered giving up the bachelor life for. And it's his ideas that make Gashi's arrest happen.