The First Domino

It's 1965 and Richard Logan is back in Saigon as a reporter. U.S. troops in Saigon have grown exponentially in the two years since his last stay. Logan has barely gotten into town when the CIA contacts him about quitting his new job with "Life Magazine" and working for them. They want him to write a book about the biggest secret of the Vietnam War but with a catch - he can't publish it for five years, after the war is expected to end.


It's an offer Logan can't refuse, especially when a former flame turns up and he has the chance to cover a plumb assignment for "Life" before starting on the book. In short order, he secretly flies to Long Tien, a secret CIA base in Laos where Companysponsored Meo mercenaries fight the Viet Cong and Pathet Lao. As is often the case is war-torn places, not all is as it seems in Long Tien. Although the Meo repeatedly raid suspected VC and PL camps, their intelligence doesn't seem accurate. The raids come a few days after their quarry has fled.


Are they being fed bad intelligence or is someone tipping off the enemy? In this fourth novel starring Logan, the intrepid journalist finds himself entangled in a spy vs. spy scenario with CIA mole-hunters trying to ferret out if anyone is supplying information to the enemy and, if so, who it might be. In this dangerous land, anyone - whether Americans or Laos - can be bought or blackmailed.


Writer and photographer Bruce Brown, an avid diver, sailor, surfer and rower, studied Asian history at the University of Southern California and lives in Pebble Beach, Calif. Brown is a former West Coast editor of Sailing World magazine and has written four nonfiction books, including "Open Water Rowing Handbook." This is Brown's fourth novel featuring protagonist Richard Logan. This latest thriller joins "A Long Way from Paradise," "Violence of Action" and "If You Think Somebody's Out to Get You."