PRESUMED DEAD is a high-velocity thriller set in the treacherous capitals of Washington and Paris, and in the unforgiving jungles of Laos. Twenty years ago David Hunter, an African-American, now an admiral in the U.S. Navy, was forced to make a damnable decision: two of his best friends, white navy pilots Bradford and Wyatt Craig, had been shot down on the last day of the Vietnam War, and he alone had to choose which friend would live or die. His friends, Bradford and Wyatt, are brothers.

Admiral Hunter has been haunted by the memory of his choice every day of his life. Now he has a chance to make it right. A laser-directed DNA fingerprinter drone has radioed signals that missing Americans are still alive in Laos. Hunter is certain that his friend, the one he left behind, is among them. Driven by guilt, and risking court martial, Dave Hunter mounts a clandestine rescue force which includes the surviving brother and the young computer genius who invented the DNA fingerprinter. Renegade CIA agents and the Russians, along with a French spy, Valentina, who seduces any man who stands in her way, want to get their hands on the DNA device too. With only a fingerprint for identification, any human being--the President of the United States, for example--can be obliterated without a trace. The three groups--Admiral Hunter's emissaries, the CIA rogues, the Russian spy--encounter each other in Laos, only to be captured by American POWs who now work for a Chinese druglord and his opium army.

PRESUMED DEAD is a riveting page-turner about a controversial subject that continues to fascinate millions of people, by a highly praised author who knows his stuff.