SUMMARY: The protagonist, a troubled and embittered Vietnam veteran, is a photojournalist for a struggling wire service. In 1986, he takes a photograph of a rock star. The next morning, three different callers claim the same man in the photo’s background is a long-missing relative and an MIA from the Vietnam War. The hero and the callers search for the mystery man, meet resistance from the White House, and uncover a horrific plot. The novel is rich with gritty detail including a fatal F-4 fighter jet mission, the massacre at My Lai, POW fantasies, and the Challenger space shuttle explosion. And it features quirky characters like a flaky, hyper-sexed divorcee who, despite numerous affairs/marriages, still yearns for her MIA first husband … an overweight forensic anthropologist with a world-class mind, major-league body odor, and a big-time crush on the divorcee … and a grieving father having unresolved anger toward his missing son, and most everyone else. This book will test your emotions and patriotism. You may alternately laugh, cry, seethe, and be rocked with blindside twists.
Abandoned in Place
“Abandoned in Place” provides a snapshot of the Vietnam POW/MIA issue. From the signing of the Paris Peace Accords, in January 1973, ending American involvement in the war in Southeast Asia to the “dysfunctional” POW/MIA accounting effort of 2014. With the period 1980 -1981 a clear line in the sand.
