Same
Valley

Two fires. The first one small. Watch which way he turns.

Eleven years ago, in a stream bed called Dar-i-Sang, the warlord Sahm Jadid killed an American sergeant named Patrick Reade. Last summer, in an orchard at Korwal, he killed the staff sergeant who led Patrick’s son. He wrote both in his ledger. Now he believes the son will come for him.

Sergeant Daniel Reade comes home from Korwal with new stripes and a dead man’s place to fill. First comes Ranger School in the dead of winter, and the friend he went in with doesn’t come out beside him. Then a team of his own, three Rangers who used to be his equals, and a woman who isn’t scared off by the dark in him. Then orders back to the province where his father died.

Jadid has spent the winter building a lesson for a son who wants revenge. An old interpreter who walked with Daniel’s father. Intelligence that is true and deadly at once. And at last, an invitation: first light, the stream bed below the second bend.

The battalion says yes. Daniel puts in writing why it’s wrong and signs his name. Then he takes his team down to the white rock anyway, because his team is going.

Jadid thinks he knows what the son will do.

He’s wrong.

Same Valley is Book Two of The Daniel Reade Novels. It follows The Second Voice and can be read on its own, though readers will get the most from starting with Book One.