The Girls with the Pale Blue Eyes
A Novel

With echoes of John le Carré’s The Night Manager, a gripping, high-octane thriller set in Afghanistan, about two sisters caught in a global conspiracy in which truth, loyalty, and survival collide across some of the world’s most dangerous landscapes.Set during the chaotic final weeks of the 2021 American withdrawal from Afghanistan, The Girls with the Pale Blue Eyes follows twenty-four-year-old Jessie Niles, who flies to Kabul in search of her mother, a missing war correspondent. What begins as a desperate rescue mission explodes into something far more dangerous: a conspiracy involving child labor in poppy fields, drug smuggling, a ruthless warlord, and unscrupulous U.S. intelligence officers who will kill to protect their secrets.In pursuit of her mother, Jessie learns a shocking truth: she has a thirteen-year-old half-sister named Arya. Now together, the sisters become targets in a terrifying chase across the war-torn country. Carrying the only proof of the trafficking and corruption their mother uncovered, and made conspicuous by their pale blue eyes, the girls must survive against overwhelming odds. Wherever they go they will draw unwanted attention and be at mortal risk — even before the warlord puts a colossal price on their heads. Spanning from Kabul to Jalalabad to the lawless poppy fields, The Girls with the Pale Blue Eyes tells a riveting story of sisterhood, courage, and the cost of truth in a world built on silence.