This is a fast-paced thriller with a fascinating mystery at its core – that journalist Peter Brandt’s older brother, believed to have perished twenty-five years earlier in Vietnam, could still be alive.

Brother Keith, a highly-regarded sergeant in the Marine Corps, was buried with full military honours. It was claimed he was killed by a mortar round while rescuing a fellow combatant.

Then the brother’s former fiancee, Rhonda White, gets in contact with Brandt, claiming she has had a chance encounter with the marine who was meant to have died alongside Keith – a man named Tommy Dykstra.

Although the man is now using a different name, she is convinced it’s Keith’s former colleague – and could be a sign Keith is alive too. The man she came face to face with had a Marine Corps tattoo on his lower arm and suffers from the same facial twitch as Dykstra.

All this sets the former international news reporter on a dangerous mission to find out exactly what happened at the Da Nang Airbase in Saigon in 1972.

Brandt has hardly begun making inquiries when, just twenty-fours after learning about the doppelganger, his task becomes even more urgent. A woman’s body is found floating in San Diego Bay and it turns out to be Rhonda.

The author’s knowledge of the US military, of events during the Vietnam War and of world trouble spots shine through in this well-researched, well-written novel.

He introduces us to a host of shady characters who are no doubt typical of some of the war-weary and war-averse personnel who served themselves as well as their country during this conflict in the 1960s and 1970s.

Black marketeering was rife during this south east Asian war. The illegal trade and the activities associated with it colour the narrative as Brandt investigates what happened to his brother.

The reader also meets a series of intriguing characters from the world of law enforcement. These include Lieutenant Mike McCarty from San Diego Police Department, whom Brandt teases mercilessly over his love of surfing. There are also the slightly more sinister US customs agent Dick Sanders and his friend Tygard, a former university professor, who is known to be a Mossad agent.

Tension mounts as our hero is confronted by a gunman, survives an explosion on a boat and narrowly avoids being blown up by a mine while struggling through the Costa Rican jungle.

Brandt normally lives in San Diego with his partner Jo Rice, who has gained the nickname “Cold As Ice Rice” since being compared to a hard-nosed New York cop. She is an ex-Military Policewoman. They share their home with Brandt’s lively, long-haired tabby cat, Jack. The banter between Brandt and Jo and the antics of the cat account for some of the humour that pervades the book and brings light relief from the main action.

A thriller is meant to entertain as well as excite, and the author certainly achieves both here. At times, the storyline may stretch the imagination a little too much – such as when a Costa Rican police chief hands Brandt and Jo a pair of Glock pistols for their personal protection.

But, in the main, I found this an enjoyable tale that relates to a period in US military history that many of us might have chosen to forget, along with its aftermath.