Book Review: The Devils Came In From The Country

Violent memories haunt Joseph Munro. Returning to Liberia years after fleeing as a war refugee, he rediscovers its mystery and natural beauty, but the extreme poverty and scars from decades of bloodshed unleash his memories. 

Then, his world changes forever when a moral dilemma echoes his family’s corrupt history. To stop Joseph’s secrets from swallowing his sanity, a woman whose journey is the opposite of his, a village healer already shouldering the burdens of his people, and a faithless former priest must guide him down cracked and twisted roads to face the warlords who shattered his psyche, an implacable plague, and the minous spirits of the Liberian bush. 

Corporate and institutional mentalities play out against the backdrop of a beleaguered nation as its people try to make sense of their past and forge a path to an uncertain future. The Devils Came in from the Country follows the journey of a refugee bedeviled by both past and future in his search for a true identity and home. 

Joseph Munro will learn that we are capable of more than we think, whether for good or for evil. James Anderson O’Neal JAMES ANDERSON O’NEAL served as a project leader for the Advocates for Human Rights when, under the auspices of the Truth & Reconciliation Commission of Liberia, the group took more than a thousand witness statements, sponsored a public hearing, published a book-length report on twenty-four years of civil conflict in that country, and made recommendations for justice and reconciliation. He became the Chair of the Advocates’ Board of Directors in 2018. The author of the Riley series of historical fiction novels, O’Neal lives in Minneapolis.