At first glance, Aftermath might appear to be a straightforward war story — paratroopers dropping into enemy fire, crackling radios, the weight of a revolver in a soldier’s hand. But Patrick Smart isn’t writing a soldier’s adventure yarn. He is writing about what happens after. The title itself is the clue. This is less about glory on the battlefield and more about the scar tissue left behind: the fractured psyches, the attempts to find routine after chaos, the sense that violence has bled into everyday life in ways that no discharge papers can erase.