Up Country

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Summary: Demille never fails to satidfy.
Review: I travel extensively and an author like Nelson Demille represents a priceless treasure to someone like me: A can't miss author whose works will virtually always be available in an airport bookstore. I've read all his book-every one bought is just such a location.

His latest effort, Up Country, is a sequel of sorts to his best known work, The General's Daughter. Chief Warrant Officer Paul Brenner is brought out of retirement to investigate a possible 30 year old murder that allegedly occurred during the Tet Offensive.

The novel is part travelogue and part suspense story. The travelogue is the obvious nostalgia of a former Viet Nam War vet in a return engagement in his old digs. Demille was in fact a Viet Nam veteran and one senses that this portion of the novel is in fact a travelogue of his own return put to novelistic purposes. It is nonetheless fascinating both as to the actual scenery as well as to the current state of politics and society in Viet Nam today.

The suspense part is not quite up to Demille's best work but not far off that standard. Faced with dangerous incidents in the urban landscape, Brenner, in the company of an attractive American businesswoman ostensibly sniffing out commercially viable opportunities, travel "up-country" seeking the instigator of the investigation, a North Vietnamese soldier who described the incident in a 30-year-old letter that has only recently come to light.

The book is long-700 or so pages, the travelogue portion adds some heft-but as is the usual with Demille, the pace is torrid and the book seems to sail along.

Demille is the master of the military thriller. This may not quite be up to his usual standards-particularly if the reader has no interest whatsoever in Viet Nam-- but he is so darn good at this genre that "not quite Demille's best" is still light years better than anyone else, and it's still an excellent read.

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Summary: Up Country
Review: I really enjoyed this book. I have always been a big fan of Demille. I love the quick witted main characters he brings to his stories. Although this wasn't quite his typical fast paced novel I still liked the difficult questioning of character that Paul Brenner experiences. The whole Vietnam war was such a difficult time in our nations history and Demille does and excellent job of expressing the ongoing searching for understanding that soldiers of that time encounter. I highly recommend it.

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Summary: Thought Provoking Fun
Review: On a number of occasions I found myself having to re read the first page of a chapter. At first I thought my mind was wandering (boring book?). I ultimately realized that the book was so thought provoking, that as I began a new chapter I was thinking about what I had just read. This is a very good read and it is not just one of those new 200-300 pagers. It has substance. Mystery story, geographic interest, wonderful environmental description and characters, and a fine remembrance of the horror of the Vietnam War.

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Summary: Loved It!
Review: As a huge fan of Nelson DeMille having read all of his novels, I was excited to read Up Country but not excited about it taking place in Vietnam. As a younger reader, I'm just not familiar with the war and thought it would be a difficult read.

I loved the book, found the setting of Vietnam to be fascinating, loved the characters and their adventures. This was a 700 page book that I didn't want to finish. This is a book that I would like to read again since it was so much fun.

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Summary: Demille is addictive
Review: I'm not a reader of "war books" I'm certainly not a fan of anything written about Viet Nam. That said, I have an absolute addiction to the writing of Nelson Demille. I've read everything he's written. Somehow he pulls me into his books, I resist but I read them and love them. This one was a gift from my mother who read it before giving it to me and has since read everything he's written. I spent a couple of weeks putting off opening it. I knew I couldn't possibly enjoy this book but I did. The story of a trip back to Viet Nam was, as another reviewer pointed out, not so much a mystery as a walk down memory lane with a lot of sex on the way. Yes, several of the characters are "over the top" and Mr Demilles hero's are all basically the same guy. He's a hell of an author who can hold the attention of the reader even with his faults. It's a book worth reading for the walk thru history and the relationship between Paul and Susan. Just don't expect a mystery

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Summary: Get Up For It
Review: There is no better modern author in my opinion than Demille. Yes I agree with a lot of the reviewers that this novel was more of a travelogue but that's fine. One of the aspects of Demille's novels is that most of his books are different. If you read other authors they usually repeat themselves and the basic story over and over again until you get bored. What Demille DOES include in 'Up Country' is the humour and quick wit of his main protaganist. I found myself laughing out loud several times. I enjoyed the trip through Vietnam in it's modern state as well as through the eyes of a returning Vietnam veteran. It was a very interesting story and educational from an historic point of view. So if you're expecting 'Plum Island' or 'The Lion's Game' forget it. Highly recommended read.

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Summary: Not a "typical" Demille but a riveting story!
Review: Up Country is not a typical Demille thriller: it is part suspense, part travelogue of Vietnam and part personal history of the Vietnam war. However this mix makes a riveting story that I couldn't put down.

There is familiar Demille territory here too. Paul Brenner, a character in "The General's Daughter" and now retired, is enlisted by his former boss in the Army's Criminal Investigation Division for an undercover assignment in Vietnam. The story he is given concerns a 30 year old murder allegedly just uncovered--an American officer killing another officer-- for which he is to see if there is any physical evidence to recover. Smelling a rat but not having much to do in his retirement, and in a limbo relationship, he reluctantly agrees to go. Some of his reluctance is due to his previous history in Vietnam--he saw two tours of duty and still has nightmares from his experiences. An ulterior motive in his assignment is to see if some of the ghosts will go away when he returns to the old battlegrounds.

In Vietnam, he meets an American ex=patriate who serves as his guide and with whom he develops a relationship. As they pursue the 30 year old murder, they have to escape the surveillance of the communist secret police (Colonel Mang is a worthy adversary for Brenner), find their way into North Vietnam, and relive for Brenner the places where he had some of his worst war experiences. As he explains what happens to Susan, his guide and lover, she begins to see Vietnam in a new light and so do we. I found the first person war history fascinating. It also was seamlessly woven into the story as an integral part as was the description of the countryside and people of Vietnam.

There is suspense as well--in addition to the cat and mouse chase with the secret police, there is, of course, another reason why Brenner was sent to Vietnam that is more complex than a 30 year old murder by an "unknown" GI.

Also familiar, and much appreciated, is Demille's character development of Brenner as an irreverent, wise-cracking but complex hero. I laughed aloud at many of his cynical remarks.

Demille is a great storyteller and I was very happy that I traveled "Up Country".

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Summary: More Than a Thriller
Review: Nelson DeMille's novel, UP COUNTRY, is more than just a thriller -- and it's a great thriller -- it's a trip back in time for all of us who were young when the Vietnam War was raging, and for those who are too young to remember that conflict, it's a painless and honest history lesson. DeMille's novel is not a raging anti-war treatise, as many of the early novels about Nam were, but instead a thoughtful reflection on what that time really meant to the men and women who fought there, and the impact it has had on all our lives. Highly recommended.

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Summary: a memorable read
Review: To a casual reader of DeMille's books, this may not stand up to his usual taut story lines. But to those who served in the military during that time, it will bring back memories, some good and some not so good. I really enjoyed the book and at times found myself reading between the lines for some kind of message. The Vietnam War was a hugely unpopular war at home and this book can evoke some empathy for what went on over there. It also brings out what may have happened, and how some of our fighting men acted in time of war. The story is certainly believable and once again I get the feeling of "what if this is really true?" as I do with all of his books. The author always seems to come up with a plot that could be true but doesn't seem likely which make his books so fun to read. This is not so much a travelogue (I doubt that it did much for the Vietnam board of tourism), but an adventure of two people looking for the truth. The plot twists and turns and I found myself wondering who to believe on each page. The places that our two characters visit are real, and I suspect that the situations that they find themselves in could be real. This is a good read. While reading the accounts of the battles in the A Shau valley and at Khe San songs of that era kept running through my head. I recommend it for anyone who is a DeMille fan.

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Summary: Up Country was a big hit with me.
Review: A wonderfully-written novel with lots of factual background (well, pretty much factual foreground!) about Vietnam. Great story, pacing, historical background and action combine to make this one of Nelson DeMille's best books.

DeMille, as usual, makes his characters vividly come to life. He shows us yet again how well he understands human nature - that sometimes your enemies can be your most important allies, and that your seemingly best friends don't always have your best interests at heart. As with DeMille's other novels, I found this book hard to put down.

BTW, I hope the film version of this doesn't butcher this excellent book as the film of "The General's Daughter" did. -PJB