A powerful, dark, and morally provocative debut novel about a U.S.
Special Forces unit operating in the Middle East, written by a former
soldier--No Easy Day meets Redeployment...
It's hot and getting hotter this summer in Afghanipakiraqistan--the
preferred name for the ambiguous stretch of the world where the U.S.
Special Forces operate with little outside attention. Team Leader Dutch
Shaw is missing his late grandmother. She was the last link he had to
civilian life, to any kind of world of innocence.
But there's no time to mourn. After two helicopters in a sister squadron
are shot down, Shaw and his team know that they're going to be spun up
and sent back in, deep into insurgent territory, where a mysterious new
organization called Al Ayeelaa has been attracting high-value targets
from across the region. As Shaw and his men fight their way closer to
the source, mission by mission, they begin to realize that their way may
have been prepared for them in advance, and not by a welcoming host.
*
The Knife* is a debut novel of intense authenticity by a former soldier
in a United States Special Operations Command direct-action team. As
scenes of horseshoes and horseplay cut to dim Ambien-soaked trips in
helicopters and beyond, Ritchell's story takes us deep beneath the
testosterone-laced patter into the lonelier, more ambivalent world of
military life in the Middle East. The result is a fast-paced journey
into darkness; a quintessential novel of the American wars of the
twenty-first century.
