In the civil war that tears apart Algeria in the 1990s, police chief Brahim Llob hunts down Islamists extremists on a daily basis. Having become the favorite target for them, it is with fear that he goes every morning to his office at the Central Commissariat of Algiers. Annoying for the power in place, preparing to publish a whistle-blower book, Morituri, Llob is obliged to take early retirement.—Akram Gus