In the Middle East, young Asaf builds a sub-rosa bar with a foreign soldier. Big trouble ensues. Religious leaders confront the soldiers. No alcohol allowed. Full of deep emotions, this is a story of how so much can go so wrong when cultures clash due to ignorance, bigotry, prejudice, and self-righteousness. 

Asaf becomes deeply conflicted between the foreign soldiers and his own people and culture. Who’s side is he on? What spirituality makes sense? How does religion fit into everyday life? The military and the religious compete for control of the area, creating a maelstrom of double-dealing, vice, and pain. 

The four main characters each descend into their own form of depravity. The self-righteous prophet turns perverse, the home-sick soldier becomes suicidal, the worn-out general crawls into the bottle, while Asaf ferments with loathing and distaste for them all. The daughter, a war-widow, seeks escape from the hyper-patristic, hypocritical village culture, and journeys to a place of hope and equality where she can live as a first-class citizen.

The characters dialogue about spirituality and the practicality of religion alongside the subjectivity of ethics and morality. It is also a literary work containing humor, literary Easter eggs, and poetry. There are timeless archetypes, like the spy, the bureaucrat, the self-serving thug who only answers to his brothers of the code, and the grouchy cafe owner who only serves Coca-Cola and Marlboro Reds.

Doom Saloon is a unique tale of the highs and lows of human nature, as a young man comes of age in a war-torn world and discovers life is not as simple as selling water at a roadside stand. Doom Saloon is one of the Bud Coke Jack & Marlboros stories available from Tim Bonner. 

This audiobook is professionally narrated by Mark McClain Wilson, and is highly recommended because of the dramatic nature of the book and its many foreign accents. This is a good format to enjoy this book.