The Silent Men - Hardcover

Dickinson, Richard H.

3.81

47 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1590710045 ISBN 13: 9781590710043

Publisher: Rugged Land, 2002

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27 January 1968

The Viet Cong call him Black Ghost.

Jackson Monroe is the finest American sniper in Vietnam's treacherous Mekong Delta.
Dispatched for a classified "illegal" mission on the Cambodia border, Monroe succeeds beyond expectation, only to be abandoned behind enemy lines and left for dead. Now Monroe's superiors need his lifeless body, back and bagged, to prevent their own court-martial.

But a cunning VC marksman knows better-clues indicate the Black Ghost stalks very close. And this American sniper must be killed before he compromises the North Vietnamese Army's meticulously planned New Year (Tet) offensive.

Snipers both, these two "silent men" cat-and-mouse through the delta terrain, a verdant landscape rendered brutal by political intrigue and harrowing firepower. And when American commanders discover Monroe may be alive, the brass must make an impossible choice-whether to rescue or kill him.

In the tradition of William Craig (Enemy at the Gates), David L. Robbins (War of the Rats), and Stephen Coonts (Flight of the Intruder), The Silent Men is at once subtle, sharp, and devastating. Richard Dickinson's superlative writing, brilliantly realized characters, and tick-tock action make him the point man for the next generation of military thriller.

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About the Author:

Richard H. Dickinson is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point. After taking advantage of a unique opportunity to be commissioned in the United States Air Force, he spent twelve years as a hurricane hunter and air traffic controller. His duties included penetrating into the eyes of forty-five hurricanes, flying into radioactive debris clouds from nuclear explosions, and surveilling incoming Russian ICBMs over the North Pacific.

He lives in Seattle with his wife, Amy Solomon. The Silent Men is his first thriller in an epic series of novels featuring Jackson Monroe.

From Publishers Weekly:

Air Force veteran Dickinson debuts with one of the most authentic Vietnam War novels since Tim O'Brien. Marksmen Tobias Patterson and Jackson Monroe are the only two blacks among their secret squad of "silent men"-snipers who prowl the jungle in pairs to pick off enemy targets. The two men would not normally be friends, but their pairing in the jungle and segregation from their colleagues bonds them. Dickinson captures the grit and intensity of the war by getting inside the soldiers' heads, without politicizing or moralizing. Monroe and Patterson are assigned the difficult (and unauthorized) mission of taking out their Vietcong counterpart, a shadowy man named Dac. As nondescript as the Americans are distinctive, Dac is known as the Black Ghost for his ability to camouflage himself. With Dac in his sights, Patterson blows the mission by instead shooting an important Vietcong general named Cho. Dac responds instantly, wounding Monroe. Patterson is forced to flee, leaving Monroe to fend for himself in the jungle. The officers who engineered the mission invent an implausible story for the killing of General Cho, which reporter Dan Brady threatens to expose. The story loses momentum when it expands to include the perspectives of Brady, Dac and others, but the riveting depiction of Monroe's struggle to survive and reach safety augurs well for future installments of this proposed series.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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