Terence Hamilton's "The Healer" is a new literary thriller set in post-conflict Serbia, exploring how genocide, nationalism, and propaganda shape the stories nations tell about themselves. The novel follows an SAS team hunting a fugitive war criminal, revealing a dark, unsettling portrait of moral ambiguity with contemporary political resonance.
LONDON, Dec. 12, 2025 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Terence Hamilton's "The Healer" Examines Genocide and Nationalism
"The Healer" (ISBN 9781919301600) is a recently released controversial literary thriller that examines how genocide is rationalised, how nationalism shapes collective memory, and how propaganda influences public attitudes towards conflict.
Set in Belgrade in July 2008, the novel follows SAS soldier Mark "Huds" Hudson as he supports the International War Crimes Tribunal in the pursuit of Rade Karovic, a fugitive war criminal living openly as a New Age healer.
Early praise highlights the novel's balance of psychological depth and moral inquiry. As BestThrillers.com writes: "The Bottom Line: A mesmerizing story of psychological suspense and moral reckoning. Hamilton writes with the grit of a soldier and the soul of a novelist."
Through the lens of a covert operation, Hamilton examines the forces surrounding the war in Bosnia. Karovic's ability to reframe violence as protection reflects how fear, grievance, and nationalist rhetoric were mobilised to justify mass atrocity. His influence in Belgrade illustrates how propaganda becomes embedded in civic life, shaping political movements and private beliefs. Serbia, still negotiating its post-conflict identity, provides the gritty setting for questions about justice and the construction of national narratives. Mark's encounters with reformist officials and competing accounts of the past reveal the fragility of "truth" in societies recovering from war. The novel avoids dramatic resolution, instead tracing the quieter mechanisms through which violence is normalised and later remembered.
In its final movement, the confrontation between Mark and Karovic shifts the focus toward individual responsibility. Their disturbing exchanges force the reader to consider Western power in global conflicts, and the uneven application of international justice - issues that remain central to contemporary debate. While rooted in the Balkans, "The Healer" speaks to present-day tensions: the resurgence of nationalist rhetoric in the United States and Europe; renewed scrutiny of war crimes committed by the West; and the global response to the genocide in Gaza, where the ongoing violence and its legal, political, and moral implications continue to shape international discourse.
"The Healer" offers a literary examination of how violence is rationalised, how propaganda circulates, and how national stories are constructed. It develops Hamilton's interest in the relationship between propaganda, power, and ideology, first explored in his debut novel about Islamic State, "The Brussels Connection".
"The Healer" is available worldwide in print and digital editions. Distribution is via Gardners / IngramSpark, ensuring availability to all major local and international retailers, libraries, and wholesalers.
About the Author: A British military veteran, Terence Hamilton writes fiction concerned with the political, cultural, and psychological structures that shape human behaviour. His debut novel, *The Brussels Connection*, introduced his interest in the intersections of power, identity, and the stories nations tell about themselves. *The Healer* is his second novel.
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SOURCE Curiously Planned Press
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