Sandblast

“Al Pessin brings a lifetime of frontline experience to a novel that could have been taken from today's headlines. Utterly compelling and a cautionary tale for our times.” --Retired U.S. Navy Admiral James Stavridis, former dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University, former commander of NATO forces (including those in Afghanistan) and frequent media commentator. SANDBLAST is the story of a U.S. Army soldier who goes undercover inside the Taliban, and the woman who runs his mission from the Pentagon, a West Point grad who fights the military brass and the White House to keep him safe. It’s a tale of bravery and the ambiguity of outcomes in war and politics, and has an ending that is simultaneously surprising and inevitable, and begs for more from these characters. it’s a thinking-person’s thriller that grew out of my own experiences, a cliché-free zone with high tension, dramatic action and deep characters sharing the pages. The book explores the futility of war, the ambiguity of right and wrong, the role of women in national security, the interplay of politics, policy, and personal relationships, and the sometimes-conflicting pulls of religion and patriotism in American identity, among other themes.