by Patrick A. Davis

In one of the most astonishing commercial debuts in many years, Patrick A. Davis joins the ranks of some of the best contemporary storytellers with The General, a novel that reaches back in time to peel the layers of evil from a brilliantly concealed episode of treachery, death, and deception during the Vietnam War era. Set in present-day Washington, where power and ambition have attained new levels of insanity, The General is masterfully plotted fiction--where only the

unexpected can truly be expected. Death by a thousand cuts. The investigators probing the brutal murder of the Air Force Chief of Staff know that the General's death had been precipitated by a particularly gruesome act of Vietcong torture. Lieutenant Colonel Charlie Jensen, the

officer assigned to the case, discovers that the General's death is a link in a chain of hideous crimes, beginning with closely

guarded secrets of the Vietnam War and extending now to the highest levels of the U.S. government. With lives, careers--and history--in the balance, Jensen is caught between blind allegiance to authority and a nobler, higher patriotism. His path to the truth is strewn with minefields--and the answers he seeks have shocking consequences.