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Officers' Club, The (2011)

by Ralph Peters(Favorite Author)

3.36 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

1455824119 (ISBN13: 9781455824113)

languge

English

genre

Mystery & Thriller

publisher

Brilliance Audio

review 1: Lt. Roy Banks is questioned about the murder of Lt. Jessica Lamoureaux. He tells the investigator that he doesn't know anything about the murder. Then, the reader learns of events leading up to that moment.Roy has been having an affair with a Captain's wife. He is part of a group of officers who like to party, called The Officers' Club.Vietnam is over and military life is comparatively relaxed. Banks plays around with his buddy, Lt. Jeffrey Massetto.Jessica arrives at a party with another officer. Later in the evening she approaches Roy and attempts to seduce him. Roy tells her that he's involved with someone and declines her offer. This seems to motivate Jessica to make Roy change his mind. It is as if she has an obsession with him.Roy doesn't want anything to do with Jes... moresica. He sees her as manipulative and calculating. She uses others for her own purposes and proceeds to sleep with most of the people in Roy's circle of friends.One night, Roy gets a call from Jerry that Jerry is in terrible trouble in Mexico and he needs help. After Roy rescues him, Jerry discloses that Jessie set him up.Was the novel interesting? Yes, in a dark way. It held my attention and described life in a manner similiar to James Ellroy, bleak but true to life.The characters seem caught up in their own situations and are unable to rise above it. This reminded me of the realism movement in literature with Frank Norris and Upton Sinclair. These character's lives weren't heroic, they didn't evoke sympathy but they did depict a slice of life.I also applaud the author for the sympathetic treatment of one character who becomes one of the early AIDS victims of the 1970s.
review 2: This is a remarkably well written murder story that isn't as much a mystery as a novel of manners and of a time gone by. Ralph Peters is obviously an insider to the world of a post-Vietnam era army, a pre-computerized world in which so much of what we take for granted today was just around the corner. We only realize how different 1980 was when we realize what isn't present in this book. To be any more specific would spoil the surprises for an interested reader.The plot revolves around two very different characters -- the narrator, a career army man with a high moral code who is willing to bend it but rarely, the other being a murder victim totally amoral and completely without redeeming value. Auxiallry characters are sharply defined, not a cliche among them. The time, the location, the sensuousness of the Arizona landscape ("God made Arizona after a lot of practice") imbues this book with high literary style. The dialogue cracks with authenticity and humor. A reader expecting a genre novel will be disappointed. A reader expecting more will be gratified. less

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