THE SILENT MEN

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. (Oct.)