Two of them feature a character, Paul Brenner, who seems to be an alter-ego to DeMille himself.
Up Country. Features Paul Brenner. This is my favorite. Brenner goes back to Vietnam to investigate a murder which allegedly occurred in Hue in 1968, amidst the Tet Offensive. This involved a US captain – now a prominent US politician pursuing a higher office – who shot a US LT in Hue, an act witnessed by an NVA soldier. Brenner is sent to Vietnam to find out what this NVA soldier – if he’s still alive (?) - knows. He starts off in Saigon, then travels up to Nha Trang, Hue, Hanoi, then the interior of North Vietnam, accompanied by a beautiful American CIA officer, Susan Weber (go figure, with all the women in Vietnam, the love interest is nguoi my!). MUCH better than The General’s Daughter. I learned a few nuggets of Vietnamese to help me at my former law practice: “co dep” (beautiful girl) and “SAT CONG!” (Kill communists!). I already knew “khong biet” (“I don’t know”), “dung lai” (later), “ong luat su” (Mr Lawyer), “troi oi” (OMG!!), “toi yeu em” (I love you), “hon mong toi” (kiss my ass), “an cut” (eat shit) and other useful fragments.
The General’s Daughter. Paul Brenner is back. This was made into a movie with John Travolta as Brenner. Brenner investigates a murder at a US military base involving a US officer, a beautiful West Point graduate, the daughter of a prominent general. It turns out the daughter had some bad things happen to her at West Point, and was into some kinky stuff at the base. As with so many of DeMille’s books, all is not what it seems.
Another popular character is former NYPD cop John Corey, who does NOT appear to be a Vietnam veteran, just a major smartass whose stories are written in the first person.
Wild Fire. Corey, assisted by his beautiful wife, FBI Agent Kate Mayfield, investigates a wealthy right-wing radical, Bain Madox, who built an ELF transmitter in upstate New York and is plotting to wipe out the Middle East, by detonating 4 suitcase nukes in L.A. and San Francisco, which will precipitate “Wild Fire”, an obscure US mutually-assured-destruction plan which dictates that the Islamic world (except Mecca and the oil fields) will be nuked by US strategic nuclear forces if any nuclear device detonates in a US city.
Plum Island. John Corey is involved in something dealing with a top secret US installation on way eastern Long Island. Clearly one of the more forgettable ones.
The Lion’s Game. John Corey is on the tail of a terrorist whose aim is to track down every USAF pilot involved in Reagan’s 1986 bombing of Libya.
Night Fall. John Corey and Kate Mayfield are convinced that Flight 800 (the TWA flight which mysteriously blew up off the coast of Long Island in 1996) was NOT an accident – that a missile was involved, somehow. But the powers that be don’t want them to look into this issue, and have a vested interest – why??? – in shooting down the missile theory, despite many eyewitnesses who saw what appeared to be a missile. Somewhat of a paranoia trip, with the pair having to figure out who they can trust, and what is really going on.
The rest of the stories involve characters who just show up for that particular story.
By The Rivers of Babylon. Two El Al Concordes are brought down by a terrorist attack. The crew and passengers of one survive, only to be assaulted by successive waves of PLO terrorists very close to the ruins of Babylon in the Iraqi desert. We have corroboration in here, as noted in Red Horizons and Seven Pillars of Wisdom (both of those non-fiction) that Arab terrorists are notorious homosexuals and lousy soldiers. Remarkably, the Israelis hook up with a remote, isolated group of Jews who had been left behind in Babylon thousands of years ago (obviously these are their descendants…!)
Word of Honor. Ben Tyson, a US officer in Hue in 1968, is brought up on charges of murder in the battle in that city. He has to defend himself, yet ultimately the truth unfolds. This was made into a made-for-TV movie with Don Johnson as Tyson.
Gold Coast. Something on Long Island involving wealthy WASPs and Mafia types. Vaguely reminiscent of The Great Gatsby.
Charm School. This was the first one I read. It’s about a “charm school” – a finishing school in the USSR for the KGB. It’s complete with a 7-11, a McDonald’s, etc., and designed to give KGB agents the ability to speak and act like Americans, not merely fluent English with Russian accent. It even features a third generation (82-92) Trans Am.
Spencerville. Keith Landry returns to small town Ohio after years abroad in the CIA killing exotic people in exotic places. There he finds his high school sweetheart has married the local corrupt, brutal police chief. Although he hasn’t made any overtures at the woman, “this town is only big enough for one of us”, and the jealous chief starts making trouble for him immediately. You can pretty much figure out where this goes. His ex-CIA buddy reminds him: “BUCHAREST.” Like I need to be reminded.
Talbot Odyssey. Another Cold War relic; this one involves a Soviet plot to induce EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) by detonating a nuclear device at high altitude above the US. The Soviet consulate at Glen Cove, Long Island, is the focal point of this one. It also turns out that a high ranking CIA officer is a Soviet mole (no, it wasn’t Ames). One of the bad characters is… a Romanian woman. Clearly not completely fiction.
Mayday. This one was co-written with Thomas Block. A new-fangled high-altitude airliner fucks up somehow, leaving everyone except one Ted Striker guy either dead or permanently brain damaged. Ted has to land the plane himself (with no inflatable automatic pilot), but comes across resistance: the airline has cynically determined that its liability will be less if the plane crashes completely, killing everyone on board (including Ted) than it would be if Ted successfully landed a plane of brain-dead zombies the airline will be legally obligated to support for the rest of their lives. So quite apart from landing the damn thing (hard enough in and of itself) he has to deal with the bullshit from the airlines (sounds like something from “South Park”).
Cathedral. A bunch of IRA terrorists capture St. Patrick’s Cathedral in NYC on the eve of the St Patrick’s Day parade. They take the Bishop (not Terry Jones) hostage. An NYC cop of Irish descent, don’t you know, turns out to be better for the cops than the actual hostage negotiator.
As I noted above, they’re all worth reading, and though I preferred some over others, none were of substandard quality. Unlike Tom Clancy, though, DeMille doesn’t get bogged down in military technology, though there is more than enough of that in several of the books to keep the fans of that stuff satisfied. Of course, there’s also sex….which is always good.
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