A young inventor and his wife are killed in a terrorist attack—leaving behind a will that surprises friends and parents by directing a vast fortune toward charities in the developing world. On the ground in Afghanistan, international charities rapidly search for Afghan partners to compete for the attention of the new foundation, focusing their efforts on two particular women in the village of Laashekoh: a young mother who might have been wrongly imprisoned for her role in helping to run a child-trafficking ring; and an older, educated woman who has a reputation for providing reproductive healthcare—including abortions. Meanwhile, most Laashekoh villagers do not want Western charity and are astounded to be regarded as potential recipients; they are self-sufficient and see no need for outside intervention in village concerns. But when a group of orphanage workers visiting the village goes missing, foul play is immediately suspected and the villagers face tough questions. As Afghans and Westerners work to uncover the truth, the reputations of charity workers, potential beneficiaries, and locals in Laashekoh are called into question. The stakes are high, the sums of money are huge, and cultures clash. All these are motivations for fraud and murder in Allure of Deceit. From the Trade Paperback edition.
The battered body of an Afghan boy is found at the base of a cliff outside a remote village in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. Did he fall as most of the villagers think? Or is this the work of American soldiers, as others want to believe? Not far from the village, the US Army has set up a training outpost. Sofi, the boy's illiterate young mother, is desperate to find the truth about her son's death. But extremists move in and offer to roust the "infidels" from the region, adding new pressures and restrictions for the small village and its women. We hear two sides of this story. One is Sofi's. The other is that of US Army Special Ranger Joey Pearson, who is in this faraway place to escape a rough childhood and rigidly fundamentalist parents. In time, and defying all odds, Sofi secretly learns to read--with the help of Mita Samuelson, an American aid worker. Through reading, the Afghan woman develops her own interpretation of how to live the good life while discovering the identity of her son's murderer and the extremists' real purpose in her village. As they search for answers, Sofi, Joey, and Mita come to the same realization: in each of their separate cultures the urge to preserve a way of life can lead to a fundamentalism that destroys a society's basic values. From the Trade Paperback edition.
Marcy James and her 12-year-old son Gavan work to fight a federal highway that would cut across the Alaska wilderness. Together, they face threats of murder to expose secrets about the truth behind an unnecessary road that would forever change the character of their community.
A young inventor and his wife are killed in a terrorist attack—leaving behind a will that surprises friends and parents by directing a vast fortune toward charities in the developing world. On the ground in Afghanistan, international charities rapidly search for Afghan partners to compete for the attention of the new foundation, focusing their efforts on two particular women in the village of Laashekoh: a young mother who might have been wrongly imprisoned for her role in helping to run a child-trafficking ring; and an older, educated woman who has a reputation for providing reproductive healthcare—including abortions. Meanwhile, most Laashekoh villagers do not want Western charity and are astounded to be regarded as potential recipients; they are self-sufficient and see no need for outside intervention in village concerns. But when a group of orphanage workers visiting the village goes missing, foul play is immediately suspected and the villagers face tough questions. As Afghans and Westerners work to uncover the truth, the reputations of charity workers, potential beneficiaries, and locals in Laashekoh are called into question. The stakes are high, the sums of money are huge, and cultures clash. All these are motivations for fraud and murder in Allure of Deceit. From the Trade Paperback edition.
The battered body of an Afghan boy is found at the base of a cliff outside a remote village in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. Did he fall as most of the villagers think? Or is this the work of American soldiers, as others want to believe? Not far from the village, the US Army has set up a training outpost. Sofi, the boy's illiterate young mother, is desperate to find the truth about her son's death. But extremists move in and offer to roust the "infidels" from the region, adding new pressures and restrictions for the small village and its women. We hear two sides of this story. One is Sofi's. The other is that of US Army Special Ranger Joey Pearson, who is in this faraway place to escape a rough childhood and rigidly fundamentalist parents. In time, and defying all odds, Sofi secretly learns to read--with the help of Mita Samuelson, an American aid worker. Through reading, the Afghan woman develops her own interpretation of how to live the good life while discovering the identity of her son's murderer and the extremists' real purpose in her village. As they search for answers, Sofi, Joey, and Mita come to the same realization: in each of their separate cultures the urge to preserve a way of life can lead to a fundamentalism that destroys a society's basic values. From the Trade Paperback edition.
Marcy James and her 12-year-old son Gavan work to fight a federal highway that would cut across the Alaska wilderness. Together, they face threats of murder to expose secrets about the truth behind an unnecessary road that would forever change the character of their community.
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