The Ghost Writer meets A History of Violence in this evocative thriller about a half-American, half-South African mercenary pitted against an international gauntlet of obstacles while seeking justice for his murdered and displaced family. When rebel Govan Seme kills Pieter Durant's widowed American mother during an invasion of their South African farm, Pieter vows to avenge her murder and recapture his farm. But his younger sister, Jessie, is about to leave for America to attend her freshman year at Princeton, and he must shoulder her tuition costs. The twenty-one-year-old farmer joins the exodus of South African mercenaries heading to Iraq in 2007 for lucrative private security jobs. When an injury forces a visit to Los Angeles three years later, to the home of his American relatives, Pieter shortly finds himself the catalyst of a crime-syndicate coup. The FBI sting that follows, along with the faith of his American lover, provide the unexpected keys that finally free him for his quest-and his most arduous challenge yet. School of the Assassins forges the classic elements of L.A. crime fiction with the political intrigue of an international action thriller. Stunning in scope and studded with realism, this novel examines the new privatization of war...amidst the ever-expanding proving grounds of the 21st century.