It is 2019 and the war in Iraq has hit its sixteenth year of continuous fighting and the financial strain on the United States is becoming increasingly untenable as the country is on the verge of financial collapse. At the same time the President commits funding to stem cell research centered on cloning cells for spinal cord injuries after his mother suffers a paralyzing fall. The seemingly unrelated developments of this program and the war in Iraq become inextricably linked when corporate greed and treachery allow the research to fall into the wrong hands, resulting in the marketing of all major organs for transplant. The economic burden intensifies as life expectancies quickly rise due to the program's dramatic success in stem cell technology. This results in a microchip being planted in all civilians to terminate life at one hundred years. However the option is left open of purchasing the remaining years from another person's chip, creating an extremely lucrative market for life extending chips. The hunt is on as prices spike for the chips and the best place to find them at a low cost is on the battlefield. For Army helicopter pilot Roger DeMarco, the politics and economics of war are far from his mind. For him, it's about getting in, rescuing the soldiers, and getting out-alive. It's that simple. But it's not going to stay that way as he is caught in the moral crosshairs of doing his job while being targeted by those sent to protect him. At home American society deteriorates in the ever-deepening web of capitalism. The conflict pushes mankind to the brink of total ethical collapse when black market research develops fully-formed human clones to be used to extend life for the wealthy until one escapes seeking vengeance. Colonel Steppe, whose rogue Apache attack helicopter squadron both guards DeMarco from Taliban extremists while harvesting Iraqi civilians for a profit; packs of flesh eating rats roam the villages to consume the chipless carcasses; DeMarco's love interest an Iraqi physician named Sherif, uses the black market to generate money for her country; combat physician Dr. Sesso, who is stridently opposed to the atrocities being committed for profit; and Vince Philapelli, a famous drug addict being watched by all of America on reality TV as he slowly kills himself in a hedonist's paradise, having sold his chip to the highest bidder. Tom P. Brown's debut is a fundamental condemnation of profit taking precedence over the value placed on human life. Absorbing and thought-provoking, bristling with tension and intensity. Thou Shalt Kill is a first-rate thriller of almost unbearable suspense and cutting edge philosophy.