Disobey bad orders

BOOK Reviews

Divine Justice

by David Baldacci

534pp, 2009 Pan paperback

Available at Asia Books and

leading book stores, 350 baht

Some past wars have had more novels written about them than others. Yanks never tire of fictional stories about WW II and the American Civil War. Vietnam and the Revolutionary War to a lesser extent, Korea and the Spanish-American War hardly at all. About Afghanistan and Iraq it's too soon to tell. WW I is curious in that it was a popular subject for a short while, then dried up.

The Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now touched all of the bases of the US war effort in Indochina. From officers enjoying napalming villages to renegades to crazed combatants to CIA hitmen, all were laid bare for readers.

The official line that the military makes a man out of you raises serious questions. To follow that logic, becoming a man means becoming a killer. Can the killer instinct be hung up along with the uniform at war's end? How can soldiers who shot as many other fellows as they were ordered to live with their conscience afterwards?

David Baldacci deals with this and more in his 17th novel, Divine Justice. Its protagonist is Oliver Stone (one of several pseudonyms). In his 60s, he's a troubled man. He's also a dangerous one, a lethal combination. The author spends over 500 pages laying out his problems. They stem back to the Vietnam War when he was a sergeant who refused to obey an order.

Due to his bravery in more than one battle, Stone had been put up for the Medal of Honour (also called the Congressional Medal of Honour, though Congress had nothing to do with it). However when he refused to destroy a village and blame the VC, Major Macklin Hayes scotched the recommendation. And Stone's objection delayed the promotion to lieutenant colonel.

An excellent sniper, Stone was assigned to a secret squad of CIA hitmen. He was sent abroad to assassinate important figures inimical to the interests of Washington. Sickened by what he was doing he upped and quit, though warned of the consequences. His wife died of cancer, his daughter murdered before his eyes. Hayes, a lieutenant general now, still has it in for him.

Killing the CIA director and a senator, both nasty pieces of work, Stone is on the run with every law enforcement body out for his blood. He holes up in the isolated town of Divine, Virginia. Which sashays into the subplot. The locale is the centre for illegal prescription drugs in the South. With the assistance of his few trusty friends in the Camel Club, he takes on his powerful foes.

Bodies pile up, Stone still able to find time to romance a local widow. It helps to understand the goings on by having read Baldacci's earlier books, because there are references to acts in them (e.g. Stone's saving the President's life) which explain acts here.

The lesson of Divine Justice is not to obey bad orders.