The Quick And The Dead

"Welcome to the land of sliding doors and slant-eyed whores..." These were the words that greeted Major Jake Culpepper, USA, on arriving in Saigon as a military advisor in late November 1963. A few minutes later the fellow officer and friend who spoke the words was dead, blown apart by a Viet Cong bomb planted in the officer's mess hall.

Jake Culpepper with two draft-age sons, recently divorced by a woman who bitterly hated the army, calling it his "mistress", was the product of four generations of career Army men. But he was unprepared for this nightmare war and he asked early on; "How do we know who the bad guys are?"

Here is a sweeping novel of the war with no victors, only victims. Here is the story of Mot, anguished secret agent of the Viet Cong; of Kristin, fervent Freedom Rider, intensely in love with Culpepper, who stands for all she opposes; of Culpepper's two sons--Andy who refused a commission and fought as a "grunt", and Mike, who went to Canada and defied the draft; of Larry Cantrell a black man with a brilliant future who risked everything in a war he hated; of Melinda, high-priced plaything of generals who at last found her true, impossible love.

Here by a much-decorated Viet Nam veteran, is a panoramic novel that chronicles more completely and vividly than ever before, the years of the nightmare war.