Leopards Kill Book

A journey into the hell that is the War on Terror?a Heart of Darkness for the new century.

Former Army Special Forces soldier Jack Pilgrim has it all ? big bucks, a successful security business with plush government contracts, a beautiful wife. Then Pilgrim?s partner, Merc Conrad, goes missing in Afghanistan with a chunk of government cash and most of the company?s assets. The CIA threatens to throw Pilgrim in jail if he doesn?t find Merc and return the money. Pilgrim knows his business--and his extravagant lifestyle--are on the line, but Merc saved Jack's life three times while they served together in the Army in Afghanistan. So Jack owes him. Big.

Determined to find Conrad, Pilgrim returns to Afghanistan. The country in chaos as the US prepares to pull out. Pilgrim follows Merc?s trail to the border area of Pakistan; with every step he seems to descend deeper into a Dantesque hell. Rumor has it that Conrad has fielded a guerilla army and is hot on the trail of Osama bin Laden. The further into the uncharted border zone Jack Pilgrim goes, the larger the legend of Merc Conrad becomes. Warding off insurgent attacks and pockets of terror cells, Pilgrim's odyssey into the Afghan badlands has him questioning his own reality, and the closer he seems to get to Conrad, the more peril he faces. If Jack Pilgrim wants to get out of Afghanistan alive, he may need Merc Conrad now more than ever.

Publishers Weekly

DeFelice has fashioned a powerful quest novel out of what could have been just a clever homage to Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Mercury "Merc" Conrad, on a shadowy assignment into present-day Afghanistan, has disappeared with $2 million of CIA money, which the agency wants back. Since Merc saved the life of his friend and business partner, ex-Special Forces soldier Jack Pilgrim, on three earlier occasions, Jack sets out to find and rescue Merc. The journey takes Jack deep into Afghanistan, a heart of darkness if there ever was one, propelling him to the very edge of civilization and beyond. Jack fights for his life on almost every page with the action slacking off only in the rare moments when he can sit back to rest and ponder questions of morality, loyalty and honor. DeFelice has coauthored many novels with such thriller writers as Stephen Coonts and Larry Bond, but this and his other solo efforts, including Threat Level Black and Coyote Bird, prove that he can write and fight with the best of them. (May) Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.