An American jet fighter pilot is shot down over Laos during the Vietnam War. Twenty years later, his body is found. An American team travels to the jungles of Laos to recover the remains of the pilot for burial at home. But upon arriving, they must deal with corrupt government officials, a police chief out on a personal vendetta and suspicious, reluctant villagers who believe it is their sacred duty to conceal the remains of the pilot from them. "The American Ghost" immerses the reader in the world of the Laoloum people and the jungles of Laos, not only bringing that world alive, but also bringing it home. In American Ghost, the fruits of war are peace and we learn how the memory of a combatant and a machine of war can become the instrument of understanding and friendship between two enemies twenty years later.