And the Whole Mountain Burned

In the spirit of MATTERHORN by Karl Marlantes, AND THE WHOLE MOUNTAIN BURNED presents an unflinching look at the hardships endured by Private Danny Shane and his squad leader, Sergeant Burch, during their mission in Afghanistan to capture an elusive insurgent in the solitudes of the Himalayan mountains. Tribal Areas, Afghanistan: the youngest soldier in a commando platoon, Private Danny Shane, steps off a chopper between ridges arrayed like craving teeth. Shane wants to be varsity. His hard-bitten squad leader, Sergeant Burch, can show him how. Their mission: kill or capture the Egyptian, an elusive insurgent who has been a primary target of the US military for years. Shane is soon chiseled by a war that’s personal, where the enemy has a face, a name. Habibullah, teenage son of the people, is studying the soldiers and adapting. With guns on full-auto, Shane and Burch trek on skis and blistered feet, moving by the lunar cycle, into the deepest solitudes of the Himalaya. Under soaring peaks, dark instinct is laid bare. To survive, Shane and Burch must defeat not just Habibullah’s militia, but the beast inside themselves.