International Impact Book Award Winner
"Demith supports this action-packed story with his own vast knowledge of the military, carefully detailing the large amount of training and planning that goes into missions. Exposition is skillfully woven into the development of the story...which leads to a satisfying ending.
For fans of the genre, this story of military action will not disappoint."
-Kirkus Reviews
Sergeant Abdullah is a trained linguist, a soldier, and now a mechanic, giving everything he has to serve the country that gave him a better life.
This stalwart soldier is heading out on his fourth deployment to Iraq, where he grew up in a small village before moving to the States with his parents under a military visa program. He is eager to deploy to Iraq yet again and assist the military's mission in any way he can.
Meanwhile, Specialist Al Khafaji joins the US Military as part of another special recruiting program through which he ultimately becomes a US citizen and soldier. However, Al Khafaji's motives are unclear to his superiors, who cannot discern what is different about him. While Al Khafaji moves through linguist training, he receives cryptic phone calls and emails as he prepares to deploy to Iraq, where his family still resides. What could these unsettling messages mean? Who is sending them?
In Of Vital Interest, Abdullah's and Al Khafaji's lives interweave as the two men join teams in Iraq, where the US Military works to dismantle a terrorist militant cell operating in a nearby village. This riveting and fast-paced novel will have you hooked from the very first page as each soldier makes his mission, whether good or bad, his life's number one priority.