We Want to Negotiate: The Secret World of Kidnapping, Hostages and Ransom

A gripping exploration of the ethical, legal, and strategic considerations of a bedeviling question: Should governments pay ransom to terrorists?

Starting in late 2012, Westerners working in Syria—journalists and aid workers—began disappearing without a trace. A year later the world learned they had been taken hostage by the Islamic State. Throughout 2014, all the Europeans came home, first the Spanish, then the French, then an Italian, a German, and a Dane. In August 2014, the Islamic State...