Barney Campbell's Rain is a searing debut that reads like a British Matterhorn. "A wonderfully achieved, enthralling and moving novel of war. Its authenticity is as telling as it is terrifying" , William Boyd. "No better on-the-ground description of Britain's war will ever be written. Rain is what Chickenhawk or, more recently, Matterhorn was to Vietnam. It's unputdownable, except for when the reader needs to draw breath or battle a lump in the throat" , Evening Standard. Corporal Thomas (my acting sergeant since Adams died) and I have to go down the line of the boys as they're checking their kit before we go out. Some of them are crying, not bawling just weeping gently but still steadfast; others are just pumped to the max, bouncing their heads up and down like they're listening to trance music, just amped about getting the rounds down. Those are the ones I'm most worried about; how they're going to cope with being back home is beyond me. Tom Chamberlain was destined to be a soldier from the moment he discovered a faded picture of his father patrolling the streets of Belfast. With the war in Afghanistan at its savage peak, Tom is dispatched from home in the dead of an anonymous September night, a blood tribute leaving without fanfare. Full of eagerness, but wracked by self-doubt, he must discover who he is and what he is capable of. But as the bonds with his comrades grow, home - and the loved ones left behind - seem ever more remote from the surreal violence and exhilaration of war. Drawing on the author's own experience, Rain is the most powerful, vivid and affecting portrait of the Afghan frontline to have yet emerged - a novel of war that will take its place among the classics from previous generations.