The Officers' Club

The murder of 1st Lt. Jessica Lamoureux at Arizona's Fort Huachuca kick-starts Peters's excellent mystery thriller set in the post-Vietnam era. Roy Banks, a 28-year-old army second lieutenant, is finishing a course in military intelligence by designing a war game exercise, but the real games are those played by his fellow officers who are members of what they jokingly refer to as "the Officers' Club," a hard-drinking, promiscuous group who spend their free time in various bars and bedrooms. Late one night, a skinny-dipping Lamoureux tries to seduce Banks, who's sleeping with a married female second lieutenant. Much to his own surprise, Banks fends her off, which proves to be one of the few astute choices he makes in a novel filled with men and women making all the wrong decisions. Peters (The War After Armageddon) shows he can explore the conundrums of love and the battlefield of the human heart as successfully as he navigates international military strategy and tactics. (Jan.)