The General's Daughter
Read The General's Daughter Online
Authors: Nelson DeMille
ESOUNDING
A
CCLAIM FOR
B
ESTSELLING
A
UTHOR
N
ELSON
D
EMILLE AND
THE
G
ENERAL’S
D
AUGHTER
“A PAGE-TURNER THAT DISTURBS, PROVOKES, AND MAKES YOU THINK LONG AFTER YOU’VE PUT IT DOWN… sophisticated and compassionate….
Pointed dialogue and gritty humor make
THE GENERAL’S DAUGHTER
a fast read.”
—Washington Post Book World
“A FURIOUSLY FAST READ, GENUINELY PERPLEXING, INVOLVING MYSTERY AND AN IMMENSELY LIKABLE ANTIHERO. THANK YOU, MR. DEMILLE.”
—New York Daily News
“DEMILLE IS A MASTER OF THE UNEXPECTED…. With
THE GENERAL’S DAUGHTER,
DeMille continues to prove himself an accomplished and incredibly versatile storyteller.”
—Cleveland Plain Dealer
“DEMILLE’S NARRATIVE ENERGY IS UNFLAGGING.”
—Boston Globe
“HIS NOVELS ARE TIMELY, AUTHENTIC, AND FILLED WITH CONVINCING CHARACTERS. Nelson DeMille is one of the few writers who consistently
takes chances and consistently succeeds. Each thriller is different in scope and texture.”
—Baltimore Sun
“COMPELLING… INTENSE… it’s a pleasure to read a novel that speaks about important issues while holding us in thrall. Nelson
DeMille is an intelligent and accomplished storyteller who’s written a good book.”
—Miami Herald
“A KNOCKOUT. DeMille’s done it again… immensely skilled… a deductive novel of unwavering excellence.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“A SPELLBINDING STORY… a superlative murder mystery that combines the plotting brilliance of a P. D. James whodunit with the
disturbing overtones of a Ruth Rendell psychological thriller… The characterizations are splendid.”
—Buffalo News
“A FAST-PACED PROCEDURAL MYSTERY…. DeMille is a great storyteller, and this one is filled with intrigue. He also creates very
believable characters and has thought up a convincing—and very strange—plot.”
—The Veteran
“TERRIFIC… this book is a real page-turner but the style and language elevate it to literature.”
—Los Angeles Features Syndicate
“WRITTEN WITH AUTHORITYAND ASSURANCE.”
—Chattanooga News-Free Press
“A PAGE-TURNER…. Once again, DeMille jolts readers with a story of murder…. He also creates a fascinating set of characters.”
—Ocala Star-Banner
“DEMILLE’S PLOTTING IS SOPHISTICATED, BUT THE PARTICULAR JOY OF
THE GENERAL’S DAUGHTER
IS ITS DIALOGUE. Brenner is a man of honor as well as a cynic’s delight and a reader’s joy. DeMille, who found his fans with
The Gold Coast,
will keep them happy with this one.”
—New York Daily News
“RAISES THE READER’S ADRENALINE LEVEL…. DeMille is a very gifted author who keeps his readers fascinated and guessing until
the very end. Even then the conclusion is a shocker.”
—Riverside Press-Enterprise (CA)
“GRIPPING… will have you biting your nails down to the quick… you won’t be able to put it down.”
—The Magazine, Baton Rouge
“A CAREFULLY CRAFTED NOVEL OF SUSPENSE…. Full of characters with depth and imagination, and the story is a great one.”
—Wisconsin State-Journal
“A SUPER OUTSTANDING BOOK… a convincing and impressive novel…. You’re in for a suspense shock.”
—Macon Beacon
“HITS THE MARK…. DeMille sustains our interest as he deviously weaves a web of suspicion around the many characters before
revealing the killer in the smashing climax.”
—Florida Times-Union
B
Y THE
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IVERS OF
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ORD OF
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ENERAL’S
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SLAND
Published by
W
ARNER
B
OOKS
THE GENERAL’S DAUGHTER.
Copyright © 1992 by Nelson DeMille. Foreword copyright © 1999 by Nelson DeMille. Excerpt from
The Lion’s Game
copyright © 1999 by Nelson DeMille. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic
or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher,
except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
Warner Books,
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10017
ISBN: 978-0-7595-2264-0
A hardcover edition of this book was published in 1992 by Warner Books.
First eBook Edition: April 2001
Visit our website at
www.HachetteBookGroup.com
.
Contents
RESOUNDING ACCLAIM FOR BESTSELLING AUTHOR NELSON DEMILLE AND THE GENERAL’S DAUGHTER
A Preview of "The Lion’s Game"
For Mom and Dad, Dennis
and Lillian, Lance and Joanie
Many thanks to my
consiglieri,
Dave Westermann, Mike Tryon,
Len Ridini, Tom Eschmann,
Steve Astor, John Betz,
and Nick Ellison.
Mille grazie.
What the dead had no speech for,
when living,
They can tell you, being dead: the
communication
Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond
the language of the living.
T.S. Eliot
Four Quartets.
“Little Gidding”
T
HE
G
ENERAL’S
D
AUGHTER
The Book & The Movie
The Book
This book, on its most basic level, is a murder mystery that happens to be set on an Army post.
But on another level, it is a story about the unique subculture of the military, about military law, and about women in the
military, and how all of these elements come together on a hot, steamy Georgia military base.
The Uniform Code of Military Justice is the law under which all the branches of the military—Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines,
and Coast Guard—operate. The UCMJ, as it is called, is based on American Constitutional law, but it is tailored to take into
account the ironic fact that men and women in uniform, who are sworn to defend the Constitution, do not enjoy all the rights
and safeguards they are defending. Military law also addresses military virtues, such as duty, honor, and loyalty—concepts
which are rarely or never addressed in civilian law.
Thus, as we see in this novel, military law is more than law—it is the whole legal, social, professional, and even psychological
matrix into which all members of the armed forces fit, or don’t fit, as the case may be.
The General’s Daughter
begins with a murder and apparent rape, and from the beginning, we see that this is not only a crime against an individual
or against society; it is also a crime against the institution of the United States Army, a crime against good order and discipline,
an affront to the concepts of honor and loyalty, and to the military maxim that “All the brothers are brave and all the sisters
are virtuous.” In fact, the murder of a female officer is the trip wire that causes an explosion that rocks the Army to its
foundations.
I wrote this novel partly as a result of the Persian Gulf War of January and February 1991. Specifically, I was impressed
by the role that women played in the war, and in the military in general. Like most Vietnam veterans, however, I was a little
surprised and a lot annoyed at how the news media reported this war, as opposed to my war. Needless to say, the military came
off looking a lot better in the Persian Gulf than they did in Vietnam. The reasons for this are too numerous to go into here,
but one reason for this was the visible presence of women in the armed forces.
The military, consciously or unconsciously, put the media in a quandary; journalists look for dirt, for government bungling,
for military incompetence. But here you had a situation where the military was at the forefront of a politically correct movement—equality
of women.
The media personalized the Gulf War with endless interviews of women doing men’s jobs. This hype, I think, helped set the
tone for the positive reporting of the war in general.
Of course, many male soldiers, sailors, and airmen felt a little left out, and certainly veterans of my generation felt totally
disenfranchised and retroactively snubbed and unfairly portrayed.
Be that as it may, the net result was a “good war,” as opposed to a “bad war.”
Regarding the “bad war,” I served in the United States Army from April 1966 to April 1969. During that time, I took my basic
combat training at Fort Gordon, Georgia, my advanced infantry training and leadership school training at Fort Dix, New Jersey,
and attended Infantry Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia. After training troops at Fort Benning, I went to
the Jungle Operations Come at Fort Gulick in the Panama Canal Zone, then shipped out to Vietnam and served as an infantry
platoon leader with the First Air Cavalry Division.
My three years in the Army were very much a male/macho experience, as you can imagine, and I did not interact with too many
female soldiers. In fact, the number of females serving in the military during the Vietnam conflict was fewer than the number
who served in World War II.
In Vietnam, aside from military nurses, there were virtually no women serving in the war zone, except civilian Red Cross volunteers,
known in the sexist jargon of the day as “Donut Dollies.” In any case, the American women in Vietnam were in the traditional
roles of caregivers, and they were no threat to the men.
In 1969, my last year of service back in the States, I began to see female officers assigned to staff jobs that were traditionally
male-only postings. This was an experiment that had mixed results. The feminist movement in America was in its early stages,
and there was little pressure on the military from any source for gender equality or gender integration.
But the military was actually in advance of the social and political movements of the day in regard to gender integration,
just as it was years ahead of the nation in racial integration when, in 1949, the armed forces ended racial segregation, albeit
by presidential order.
The point is, the armed forces has a mixed, but mostly positive record in all areas of equality. This is partly a result of
the nature of the organization. By that I mean, if you’re going to ask a black man to fight and perhaps die, then you can’t
treat him as a second-class citizen. If you’re going to ask a woman to serve in a close-combat support group (but not in combat
itself), then, again, you have to extend to her all the rights, privileges, and opportunities that accrue to the man serving
beside her.
