I recently finished A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, which was the follow up to the Kite Runner. Both are set in Afganistan and they can be rather harrowing reads but beautifully written and you'll whizz through them. Get the Kleenex out though. Am now reading Charles Bukowski's Pulp which is pastiche of a detective story and quite frankly it's not one of his best.