Somalia is a country filled with armed clans, pirates, poverty, and, increasingly, terrorism, and Parson and Gold are about to find out about all of them firsthand. An al-Shabaab leader called The Sheikh has declared all aid to be a sin against God, and is launching attacks against planes and convoys to stop it. If that isn’t bad enough, a Hollywood actress and activist has flown into Somalia to make a documentary, and as far as Parson is concerned, she might as well just be painting targets on all of their backs. The mission becomes even more complicated when they encounter a wounded al-Shabaab fighter who might be seeking asylum—or a chance to kill.

Not even Parson knows just how khatar his mission of mercy will become.

An extraordinary debut novel about courage and survival in Afghanistan, written as only a man who has “been there and done that” could tell it.

“When you write fiction, your best work may come from what scares you the most,” writes airman Thomas W. Young. “When I first flew to Afghanistan, what scared me the most wasn’t the thought of getting shot down and killed. It was the thought of getting shot down and not killed. . . .”