Behold the Fire

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Weaving together elements from police procedurals, political thrillers and tales of international intrigue, Salinger's debut is intricately involving and full of memorable characters. U.S. Army Corporal Isaac Johnson (Zack), an MIA medic held in Cambodian jungle camps by the Khmer Rouge for 20 years, saves the life of Ev Ransom, an ex-POW and powerful illegal arms dealer for Parker Global, a New York defense contractor. Vowing to get Zack home, Ransom funnels Zack's fingerprints to MIA/POW activist Senator Antel Grantham, drawing the anxious interest of Pentagon insiders who are desperate to maintain that no MIAs exist. Meanwhile, execs at Parker Global turn up strangled, garnering the attention of NYPD Lt. Mel Fink. A streetwise homicide detective, Fink unexpectedly falls for a victim's widow, Marissa, who is closer to Ransom and to Global than Fink knows. Senator Grantham whisks Zack's mother from the Detroit projects to D.C. for a media blitz that outrages Pentagon officials. Ransom, Global, Grantham, the Pentagon, the NYPD and a Cambodian assassin all have spies whose reports spur the action. Marissa prevails upon Fink to spirit Zack's mother to Manhattan, a half-step ahead of the forces out to get them. Ultimately, Ransom and Fink face big-time killers in a conclusion that leaves enough ends loose for several sequels. Salinger cuts through suspense novel clichs with solid characterizations and a witty touch of romance without dampening the excitement or down-playing evil motivations. The authenticity of both the Cambodian and New York settings make this an uncommonly fascinating thriller.(Sept.)

Library Journal

Salinger's debut novel is a well-crafted thriller that will grip readers from start to finish. The story opens with NYPD detectives Fink and Barton investigating the murder of an arms seller employed by Parker Global, a large defense contractor also selling to Third World countries. The second chapter switches to Southeast Asia, where U.S. Army medic Zach Johnson has been a POW/MIA for the past 25 years. Not all politicians and military brass are elated when Corporal Johnson emerges from the Cambodian jungle; in fact, someone wants him dead. Short chapters cut between a large cast of interesting characters, who are brought together by cleverly contrived circumstances for a fast-paced denouement. Along the way, numerous plot twists provide genuine suspense. Recommended for public libraries.Will Hepfer, SUNY at Buffalo Libs.

Kirkus Reviews

A dizzy whirlwind of a debut thriller that ultimately runs out of air: about the fate of an American soldier trying to return home 25 years after having been listed as missing in action.

Do the garroted corpses of employees of the Manhattan-based international arms-dealer Parker Global have anything to do with the savagely wounded hulk of a Colonel Everett Ransom found bleeding in the Vietnamese jungle? First-novelist Salinger suggests a connection as he cuts rapidly between the idyllic paradise of postwar Vietnam and the NYPD Bluelike milieu of Homicide Lieutenant Mel Fink and his partner, Don Barton. As Barton and Fink (their names are juxtaposed, making for a series of campy allusions to the Coen brothers movie) are seduced but not corrupted by various denizens of Parker Global, Colonel Ransom awakens to find himself under the care of Isaac "Zach" Johnson, a saintly Army medic who was captured by the Viet Cong and has survived all these years as a village doctor. Ransom vows to take Johnson, and his Vietnamese girlfriend Mee Yang, back to the States—no simple task, thanks to a sky-high pile of thinly brushed bad guys inside Parker Global, the Pentagon, and the news media. Soon, everybody wants to kill Johnson and Ransom, a former bad guy who did secret arms smuggling for Parker Global. Salinger doesn't let any of his microscopically brief chapters end without Hollywood-style ultraviolence, bedroom acrobatics, or a snickering revelation of how nasty some Americans can be. Whatever help such devices might offer, his story still collapses under the corpses of too many interchangeably vile also-rans, while his thesis—that finding out what really happened to our Vietnam vets, POWs, and MIAs is the kind of prayer that God can only answer as a curse—does not convince.

A quick, breezy, confusing read that, despite its baggy plot, gratuitous sex, and ditto violence, shows the skills of a writer who is meant for finer things.