High in the Smoky Mountains, a secluded laboratory becomes the birthplace for the latest military achievement: a replacement for the human soldier. Advanced medical techniques--and cruel surguries--create a hybrid animal clever enough to take orders, yet more deadly and expendable than humans . . . and smart enough to know what revenge means.

In his book Men Against Fire, [historian S. L. A.] Marshall asserted that only 15 to 25 percent of American soldiers ever fired their weapons in combat in World War II. . . . Shooting at the enemy made a man part of the “team,” or “brotherhood.” There were, of course, many times when soldiers did not want to shoot, such as at night when they did not want to give away a position or on reconnaissance patrols. But, in the main, no combat soldier in his right mind would have deliberately sought to go through the entire ear without ever firing his weapon, because he would have been excluded from the brotherhood but also because it would have been detrimental to his own survival. One of [rifle company commander Harold] Leinbaugh’s NCOs summed it up best when discussing Marshall: “Did the SOB think we clubbed the Germans to death?”

KIN has been a long time coming for this author. It combines history with a terrific and tragic story of two brothers separated when they were young. One lives the life of a terrorist for the Irish Republican Army, the other works as an agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and has to hunt his brother down. The brothers also have a sister who is dying from cancer, and her letters to her brother keep him walking a tightrope between the love for his family and his job of pursuing them at the same time. KIN contains, at times, heart-wrenching drama along with plenty of action and excitement. The one thing it does most of all is try to tell a story that covers both sides of the troubles Ireland has been plagued with for centuries. There are no happy endings when it comes to an Irish story, only realism and honesty. This is what the book accomplishes.