Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist by Sunil Yapa
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As powerful as its advance reviews, I revved through this book like a racing bike barely pausing to enjoy the fine writing, biting description, well-wrought main characters (three activists, three cops and a WTO delegate from Sri Lanka) caught up in downtown Seattle for the 1999 demonstrations. From time to time, I'd stop to take issue with some small geographic detail about my home town (a city by the Sound, not the sea as the author writes) but mostly I just barreled through the story, remembering the smell of tear gas as I drove back up to Capitol Hill that fateful day. I particularly enjoyed the passages with the delegate, concerned about his agenda and not grasping the enormity of the protest as he tries to make his way to the convention center. The police were harsh characters but their overreaction is well drawn in keeping with actuality. My sympathies were naturally with the protesters and how ill-prepared any were for the extent of violence encountered. The author's economic background slipped in nicely to explain issues without dampening a beautifully written story.