The Sage of Saigon

The action in this historical novel takes place during the turbulent final full year of American military involvement in Vietnam, 1972.First Lieutenant Tom Ross and his fellow investigators of MACV's 1st Special Investigations Unit constantly find themselves in challenging situations while investigating drug use, drug smuggling and other illegal activities by U.S. military personnel in Saigon and other locations.Ross meets a beautiful young half-French, half-Vietnamese tour guide named Genevieve Ferrand who, unknowingly, helps him by introducing him to her father, Henri Ferrand.Henri has been living in Vietnam since 1947 when it was still French Indochina. He has more information about the high-ranking Vietnamese civilian and military officials who are at the heart of the rampant corruption, drug trafficking and black marketing than anyone else.He's been blackmailed and he and his daughter's lives have been threatened by his boss, the second richest and one of the most corrupt and dangerous men in all of South Vietnam. Henri has an unusual plan to save his daughter's life, but it will take a deal with Lieutenant Ross to make the plan work.Meetings between high-ranking Viet Cong members of the Communist Provisional Revolutionary Government provide a unique insight and viewpoints from the "other side" as they plan for the final overthrow of South Vietnam's "puppet" government shortly after the departure of U.S. troops. Their direct involvement in the corruption of South Vietnamese leaders, the drug trade, and how they got millions of dollars from the U.S. government, shocks Lieutenant Ross and the MACV commander once the truth is revealed in the journals kept by the "Sage of Saigon."