In the depths of Vietnam's jungles, a radioman and a haunted sniper try to survive Jackson has three hundred days left in Vietnam, and he plans to spend them behind a desk, working the radio for a major in a godforsaken firebase not far from the Laos border. But one day, the reality of war visits Jackson in the form of Tom Light, a sniper whose scope is said to have the power to raise the dead. Where Light goes, ambushes follow, and so he has been cursed to wander the jungle alone, his skin growing pale, his boots replaced with sandals. Tom Light is a dangerous man to know, a spooky lost soldier who survives in spite of himself. Jackson wants to learn his secret. Hoping the master sniper can keep him safe, Jackson ventures out with Light. In the jungle they will encounter perils-some real and some hallucinatory. Can the strange sniper's all-powerful starlight scope will them to stay alive?
"As a Vietnam veteran I was deeply moved by this harrowing and gripping account of the war in Vietnam. Scott Ely has captured the reality-and the unreality-of the war with the authenticity of one who has been there. I recommend Starlight to anyone who served in Vietnam and to anyone who wants to understand what the war meant to those who fought it."
John Kerry
"Very good entertainment."
John M. Del Vecchio, author of The 13th Valley
"One of the few novels out of the Vietnam conflict that can be called authentic literature."
