Summary and Reviews of Up Country by Nelson DeMille

Book Summary

Thirty years later, an American army lieutenant's death in Vietnam is still shrouded in mystery; the only evidence is a recently discovered letter written by an enemy soldier describing an act of shocking violence. Brenner's assignment: return to Vietnam and find the witness....

#1 New York Times bestselling author Nelson DeMille brings back Paul Brenner, the army investigator from The General's Daughter, in a sensational and poignant new novel of suspense...

Up Country

There is a name carved into the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C., of an American army lieutenant whose death is shrouded in mystery. The authorities have reason to believe that he was not killed by the enemy, or by friendly fire; they suspect he was murdered.

At first, Paul Brenner, himself a Vietnam vet, isn't interested in investigating the case. After his forced retirement from the army's Criminal Investigation Division, he has adapted to the life of a civilian with a comfortable pension. Then his old boss, Karl Hellmann, summons him to the Vietnam Memorial to call in a career's worth of favors. Hellmann tells Brenner of the circumstances surrounding the officer's death, and gives him this much to go on: The incident happened over three decades ago in Vietnam; the only evidence is a recently discovered letter written by an enemy soldier describing an act of shocking violence. The name of the North Vietnamese soldier is known, but not his present whereabouts, or even if he is alive or dead.

Brenner's assignment: Return to Vietnam and find the witness. The addendum: The mission is very important to the U.S. Army. Brenner's the ideal man for the job. And it's in his best interest that he doesn't know what this case is really about.

Reluctantly, Brenner begins a strange journey that unearths his own painful memories of Vietnam and leads him down a trail as dangerous as the ones he walked a lifetime ago as a young infantryman. From sultry, sinful Saigon, where he meets beautiful American expatriate Susan Weber, to the remote, forbidding wilderness of up-country Vietnam, he will follow a trail of lies, betrayal, and murder—and uncover an explosive, long-buried secret.

Filled with intrigue and espionage, romance and seduction, action and adventure—as well as the author's patented, subversive wit—Up Country is, above all, about what happens when men fight in wars and how it changes them forever.