Not often, but sometimes, you realize the book you are reading is more than a story, more than facts or figures. This is a testament. Krauss lets the reader listen to four families stories of a life of hardship, and of that numbing disaster, and their experience of corruption in the relief efforts that followed

These are poor, almost unimaginably poor people, who were left with nothing following the tsunami, but still had compassion for the Europeans caught up in the tragedy with them, and who had pride in how they had supported each other in a time of suffering. For them to suffer then at the hands of corrupt police and officials who diverted relief funds and goods into their own pockets seemed impossibly cruel. It's hard reading. There's a cut-through honesty in these accounts that grinds you down. When is something good and fair going to happen to these people? And then, Krauss in just a few pages at the very end of the book, steps out behind the stories. He invites the reader to meet the people behind these stories, by telling his own story of how he first met them. And something of the distance between the reader and the subject crumbles then, and you feel - and share - his humility and wonder at how strong and spirited these people really are. There's a lot more to be said about this book, and about its author, but this isn't the place. Read the book. ( )