Nelson Demille

'Airport novels'. Easily a derogatory term thrown at mass market authors had its original connotation as a descriptive adjective for the good clean easy fun that comes from a master storyteller appealing to the masses via the airport kiosk. A book you can buy, enjoy reading, and pass on with no fear of offending whomever you give it to or who may find it in their next seat. It's why they sell millions and their authors have no reason to hang their heads, though many a bibliophile - confession; I, for one, do it a lot (sorry David Baldacci, Brad Thor, etc, but your formulaic ad-libs don't inspire me) - deride them.

Nelson Demille is, though, the very best of these authors, never having written a bad book and always delivering in a pinch. Often I have run out of reading material in the 'pre-kindle' days where I traveled extensively, and I always knew that if I could find one of his that I had not read, the day would be saved and no flight delay would be intolerable. My favorite of his books is The Gold Coast (1990), the tale of old money petering out on his native Long Island and merging with new capital and the old traditions of la cosa nostra, which spawned a sequel a decade later, The Gate House (2008), which was just as riveting. Supposed to have become a movie, The Gold Coast even had Al Pacino attached to play the mobster but a series of sales of rights and lawyer shenanigans kept it from ever being made and we are all the poorer for it.

At the height of the Cold War, Demille wrote The Charm School (1988)about a KGB training facility in Russia staffed by captive US POW's from Vietnam who were used to train Soviet deep cover agents. It was harrowing, entertaining and better than any of the other stories related to that possibility.

Demille was a U.S. Army infantry officer in Vietnam and his hard-earned knowledge lends verisimilitude to any novel with a US Army protagonist. In Word of Honor (1985) his central character is a former US Army officer who had resigned his commission after service in Vietnam but is called back involuntarily for a war crimes investigation. Intelligent and accomplished, it was a fitting discussion of some vital experiences of that sad war on both sides.

In a series featuring an Army Criminal Investigative Division (C.I.D.) character, Paul Brenner, Demille exposes the very best and worst that the US Army and the DOD perpetrated in the war, giving the reader insight into a normally hidden world. One of these novels, The Generals Daughter (1992) became a hit movie with John Travolta, but there are others in the series with my favorite being Up Country (2002) as our hero goes back to Vietnam in 1997 after being recalled to CID and not having been there since his service in the war.

There are other serial novels too, such as the John Corey Series' exemplified byPlum Island (1997) that stand out, but I must confess he does hit some old tropes. For example, in one series built around a Federal anti terrorism agent which simply failed for novelty in an over worked genre and did not fill me with joy. Generally, though, but I am more than willing to overlook their predictability as, after all, he saved me when I could get nothing better at many an airport. Thank you sir.