Double Fault - Hardcover

Bickham, Jack M.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312853858 ISBN 13: 9780312853853

Publisher: Tor Books, 1993

Synopsis

The FBI searchrd for the members of an infantry unit that massacred a Vietnamese village, while the killers hunt the pilot who witnessed the massacre, a friend of ex-tennis champ and CIA operative Brad Smith

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews:

Former tennis champ, Vietnam grunt, and CIA stringer Brad Smith (Breakfast at Wimbledon, 1991, etc.) finds himself harried by homicidally traumatized Vietnam combat vets. Over the years, a hit squad has been murdering the survivors of a particular infantry unit that fought at Quang Xi, site of a My Lai-style massacre of civilians. The latest victim is helicopter copilot Dave Wentworth, killed right after a fake Pentagon agent fools Smith into revealing his whereabouts. Last on the death-squad's list is pilot Kevin Green, who vanished after being repatriated from a Vietnamese POW camp. Smith, besieged by uncommunicative FBI, CIA, and Pentagon agents, learns that Green witnessed the massacre, then allowed the guilty GIs to stumble into a Viet Cong ambush. Will the hit squad's last hope--deranged, cancer-riddled Arnie Tubb--get to Smith before Smith can locate Green? Meanwhile, the narrative--alternating between first person (Smith) and omniscient author (dimwitted agents; pathetic, rather than threatening, vets; government bigwigs)--generates no tension or momentum, and precious little intrigue. Altogether a bloated, mediocre farrago; Brad Smith isn't the first spook to look threadbare in the absence of reliable, Evil Empire KGB opposition. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly:

A massacre in Vietnam 25 years ago sparks attempted revenge in former tennis champ Brad Smith's fifth gritty mystery (after Breakfast at Wimbledon ). Recovering at his Montana resort from a knee injury sustained during a celebrity match, Smith receives a visit from an army intelligence officer seeking information about Kevin Green, his college tennis teammate and Vietnam comrade who supposedly died while a POW, but who was recently photographed in the Denver airport. When Smith finds the corpse of David Wentworth, Green's wartime helicopter copilot, with one ear cut off (a mutilation practiced by some American soldiers in Vietnam), he realizes that the army officer was an impostor and sets out to find Green before anyone else does. Smith roams across L.A., Kansas, Oklahoma, Ohio and Colorado before uncovering the truth about a haunting event: a massacre at Quang Xi in 1968. His final confrontation with a delusional vet suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is brutal and sadistic. High-toned moralism mars some closing passages, but for the most part Bickham offers a straightforward tale revealing the grim consequences of deaths perpetrated in the name of loyalty and honor.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Tor Books
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0312853858
• ISBN 13: 9780312853853
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 351