Colorado Parks & Wildlife Research Library

"From a distance, Michael and Joleen Zarkades seem to have it all: a solid marriage, two exciting careers, and children they adore. But after twelve years together, the couple has lost their way; they are unhappy and edging toward divorce. Then the Iraq war starts. An unexpected deployment will tear their already fragile family apart, sending one of them deep into harm's way and leaving the other at home, waiting for news. When the worst happens,...

During the Iraq war, U.S. Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller leads Mobile Exploitation Team-Delta (MET-D) on a fruitless search of suspected WMD sites. When he wonders out loud why the intelligence is all wrong, he's told not rock the boat. Soon Miller, working with a local Iraqi informant named Freddy, is going after a Ba'athist general named Al-Rawi. CIA agent Martin Brown and journalist Lawrie Dayne share Miller's doubts; each have some pieces to...

"At night, in Huda's fragrant garden, a breeze sweeps in from the desert encircling Baghdad, rustling the leaves of her apricot trees and carrying warning of visitors at her gate. Huda, a secretary at the Australian embassy, lives in fear of the mukhabarat-the secret police who watch and listen for any scrap of information that can be used against America and its allies. They have ordered her to befriend Ally Wilson, the deputy ambassador's wife....

Alia Muhammad Baker is a librarian in Basra, Iraq. For fourteen years, her library has been a meeting place for those who love books. Until now. Now war has come, and Alia fears that the library--along with the thirty thousand books within it--will be destroyed forever. In a war-stricken country where civilians--especially women-- have little power, this true story about a librarian's struggle to save her community's priceless collection of books...

Flighty but good-hearted Victoria Jones craves love, intrigue, and adventure. She strikes gold in Edward, a handsome and mysterious traveler whom she's vowed to follow to the ends of the earth. Yet no whirlwind affair can prepare Victoria for what unfolds once she lands in Baghdad. Not a day in Edward's shadow, and she hears whispered warnings of danger and witnesses the murder of a secret agent in her hotel room. And when she discovers that a romantic...

The author, a Navy SEAL, returned from his star-crossed mission in Afghanistan with his bones shattered and his heart broken. So many had given their lives to save him, and he would have readily done the same for them. As he recuperated, he wondered why he and others, from America's founding to today, had been willing to sacrifice everything, including themselves, for the sake of family, nation, and freedom. In this book, we follow the author to...

This is the story of how an Iraqi, code name Johnny Walker, became guided the U.S. Navy SEALs through Iraq's most dangerous regions. Over the course of eight years, Johnny Walker unmasked countless terrorists and helped foil an untold number of plots against Americans and their allies.

"When Billy Summers was twelve years old, He shot and killed his mother's boyfriend after he kicked Billy's sister to death. At 17, he enlisted in the army. At 18, he was a sniper in Iraq and involved in the deadly battle to recapture Fallujah. For nearly twenty years, he's worked as a paid assassin. He's a good guy in a bad job, and he wants out. He takes on a very complicated, very lucrative job that he hopes will be his last. He's got a perfect...

In September 2003, after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Stewart signed up to work with the Provisional Authority. After spending time walking through the Middle East, he was intimately familiar with the people and their culture. However, nothing could prepare him for his time in the Amara and Nasiriyah provinces. Once on the ground he encountered a colorful mix of Iraqis, some of whom resented the Westerner's very presence. He also witnessed the many...

Entrusted with her late husband's discovery of extraterrestrial life and enlisted by her dead husband's friend, anthropologist Pierre Saad, to help him smuggle a newly discovered artifact out of Egypt -- an ancient codex concerning the human authorship of the Book of Genesis -- Lucy Bergmann crash lands her plane on a slip of land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the Middle East. Burned in the crash landing, she is rescued by Adam, a delusional...