A Twisted Plot

The story begins in 1969 when the son of Rudder Glynn is captured in the Republic of Vietnam at the beginning of a battle later dubbed "Hamburger Hill." The son, Kip Glynn, survives a helicopter crash in which several members of his company are killed. He is captured and dragged into Laos by the North Vietnamese. These events occur in May and are recounted in the first three chapters.

In the next three chapters, the scene shifts to Columbia, South Carolina, where the reader is introduced to Rudder and Millie Glynn. When Rudder returns home from playing golf and finds an Army sedan parked in his driveway, he presumes his son has been killed. Before the Army notification officer can tell him any differently, he collapses and dies from a massive heart attack. He was 53 years old.

The events leading to his death are recounted in Part I (Chapters 1-6). The story then reverts to the days before World War II in which a young Rudder Glynn and his wife prepare for war. His anticipation of entering the war as an Artillery officer is interrupted when his ship arrives off the coast of French Morocco on the eve of Operation Torch, and he learns he has been "drafted" into the OSS. The head of OSS, Colonel William J. (Wild Bill) Donovan, asked for him by name. Not only was he fluent in French, but his father had been Donovan's operations officer during World War I. As an agent of the OSS, he served first in France, then in French Indochina.

Rudder Glynn never quite comes to terms with his life as an undercover agent. He abhors the nature of the killing he is forced to do - up close and personal - and the lie he is forced to live. In France (Part II), the reader is introduced to two important people in his life, both of whom die as a tragic consequence of war. One is a French born American citizen, Jean-Pierre de Saussure; the other is a beautiful French woman, Lucie Madeleine Bourdonnaye.

Part II ends as Rudder Glynn returns to the United States a physically broken, guilt-ridden man. His closest friends lie buried in unmarked graves in France, and he must face the woman he betrayed. He has been summoned to Washington to receive a new mission.

Part III begins when Rudder Glynn and General Donovan meet with President Roosevelt. He learns of the President's desire to promote independence in Indochina and is given a secret mission to assess the capabilities of the native Annamese (Vietnamese) to conduct their own affairs. Because of U.S. alliances with Britain and France, no official sanction can be given to the mission.

Rudder's mission in Indochina convinces him that we should never allow the French to return to Indochina at the end of the War. Unfortunately, the death of Roosevelt and the emergence of an irrational fear of the Red menace cause the United States to side with France, rather than the people of Vietnam.

The story concludes in Arlington National Cemetery, the place it left off at the end of Part I, then later at the home of his wife in Columbia, South Carolina. All of the mysteries that have been woven into the fabric of the story are revealed in the end, including the fate of his son who was captured in Vietnam, and the Vietnamese daughter he never knew. It is an ending that should only be revealed as the reader uncovers the twisting, turning plot and arrives in the cemetery for the funeral of one more casualty of the American debacle we now call, Vietnam.