A man hired by the US to encourage growing things other than opium poppies passes by a field where workers are tending poppies; he hits and kills a young girl in Afghanistan shortly before the Russian invasion. The novel deals with the aftermath: his sense of guilt, the girl who haunts him, and his capitulation to the opium dealer who blackmails him. It's an odd book in that the main character and his milieu isn't very sympathetic, while the horrible blackmailer has a more engaging story. The setting was interesting but I ended up skimming through some of the middle section.

This was a great book that seamlessly weaves fictional and historical characters seamlessly. Very well written as this is the authors first novel. Very well researched.