Book excerpt: A young Marine Corps sergeant newly assigned to a tour of duty on Okinawa, Japan, encounters a six-hundred-year-old ghost. Both the marine and the ghost have a history of violence and no desire to move past it. After a tumultuous beginning to their relationship, a relationship embroiled in murder investigations involving a local crime family, it forces a collaboration between the two. Artemis Jones reenlisted in the Marine Corps for four years to receive orders to Okinawa. His wife, an army specialist, had received orders to Okinawa a year previous. This was to be their long-waited reunion. The ghost, a vengeful spirit with samurai training, growing ever stronger over the years, was finally strong enough to resume the role of protector over the family land. Whether by chance or by fate, their paths collide.