Abandoned Homes: Vietnam Revenge Murders is a suspenseful serial killer crime novel.U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War ended in 1975 when the U.S. abandoned its embassy in Saigon.
However, the hate developed during the war years, especially at major universities continued. Proponents of the war, fierce opponents of communism, acted during the war years to remove potential traitors from our society. Those against the war continued their opposition, begun in the 1960s, culminating in the riots and student killings at major universities, including Kent, Maryland and Wisconsin.
Paul O’Hare, a retired history professor, uncovers a long-hidden domestic impact of the Vietnam War thirty-five years after the war ended when he finds a skeleton in the crawl space of an abandoned home in southern Delaware. The Delaware State Police investigation team, headed by Detective Margaret Hoffman, discovers two more skeletons and the quest for a serial killer begins. Hoffman soon determines the three skeletons had been graduate students at the University of Maryland during the 1970s as had Paul O’Hare. He soon becomes a major suspect. Eventually the State Police clear him and he begins a romantic relationship with Detective Hoffman that must resolve conflicts between his anti-war sentiments and her experience as a Marine veteran.
The investigation uncovers Vietnam War controversies between pro- and anti-war graduate students at the University of Maryland in the early 1970s. Several anti-war students reportedly committed suicide, but their friends believe the CIA assassinated them. Thirty-five years later, after O’Hare’s initial finding, additional skeletons and missing Maryland students are discovered by Detective Hoffman’s team. The investigation unravels the long simmering hatreds between the pro- and anti-war factions, culminating in additional killings and attempted murders in 2008. Identifying the missing Maryland students, Ralph Cohen and Anne Carlsson acquaintances of Paul O’Hare, who had changed their identities to avoid the fate of their friends, and bringing them into protective police custody becomes the key to identifying the serial killers.
The search for a serial killer reveals a complex web of interrelated former students, questionable suicides, a crusading newspaper reporter, and CIA agents and double agents, in this fast-paced suspense novel.
The Maryland Writers Association awarded Abandoned Homes: Vietnam Revenge Murders first place in the mystery/thriller category in their 2018 novel contest.
