Courage under Fire

Major Nat Serling investigates the shooting down of a medevac helicopter during the Gulf War, a crash that takes the life of Captain Karen Emma Walden, who is up for a posthumous Medal of Honor, and uncovers more than he expected about the incident. A first novel. 30,000 first printing. $50,000 ad/promo.

A powder-keg investigation into the actions of the first woman eligible for the Army's Medal of Honor in combat keynotes Duncan's exciting debut. Lt. Col. Nat Serling has been racked with guilt ever since four members of his tank unit died under friendly fire in the Gulf War. Now Nat is assigned the inquiry into another fatal Gulf War incident?one that led to the death of helicopter pilot Cpt. Karen Emma Walden, who is in line for the Medal of Honor. Serling suspects collusion when Walden's crew chief, medic and machine gunner at first supply the same details of the event. But as the three begin to break, their confessions provide vivid, disturbing images of the physical and psychological brutalities of war. Serling, meanwhile, suffers the demons of depressive drinking as he struggles to rebuild his marriage, career and life by assuaging the remorse arising from his own desert storm. Duncan constructs this novel with the slick cinematic skill that has made him a top Hollywood screenwriter (Nick of Time, etc.), and when Serling finally uncovers the truth of what happened both to himself and to Walden, there won't be a dry eye in the house.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

An Army wunderkind whose upwardly mobile career has been stalled by a friendly-fire incident during the Gulf War redeems himself in the course of an investigation. Lieutenant Colonel Nat Serling has been in an alcoholic funk since his tank squadron killed fellow Americans in the fog of battle. Though he was cleared of blame for the deaths, Serling's inability to forget makes life miserable for his colleagues and family. Stuck with meaningless duties at the Pentagon, the hard- drinking Serling is handed a politically sensitive assignment by a sympathetic general that could help him regain the confidence of his superiors. His task is to determine whether there are any eleventh-hour obstacles to making the late Captain Karen Emma Walden the first woman to earn the Medal of Honor for valor in combat. The pilot of a medevac helicopter that had been shot down on a rescue mission behind enemy lines during the Desert Storm campaign, she helped hold off scores of heavily armed Iraqis (at the cost of her life) during a nightlong firefight; her courageous stand permitted the recovery of a dozen wounded soldiers. While conducting his cross-country inquiry, however, Serling gets conflicting testimony from surviving eyewitnesses. Dogged by a White House aide whose masters scent a photo op, the world-weary colonel unearths evidence of a possible coverup and sorts through confessions as well as statements that oblige him to reflect on the nature of duty, heroism, and cowardice. In the wake of a violent climactic confrontation, Serling is able to reach an accommodation with himself and recommend that appropriate honor be paid the memory of Captain Walden. Serling's whiny self-pity can reach truly tiresome heights on occasion, but first-novelist/screenwriter Duncan delivers an engrossing twist on the dilemma of a devil's advocate in a military milieu. (Film rights to Twentieth Century Fox) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

This military tale imagined during the Gulf War would sink out of sight if not for the star-studded (Denzel Washington and Meg Ryan) action movie with which it will be packaged this year. The basic plot pits flawed truthseeker against liars and bureaucrats and operates by determining whether a female chopper pilot posthumously merits the Medal of Honor. Politicos demand it; Lieutenant Colonel Serling (no doubt the Washington role) gets the task of putting the paperwork ducks in a row as a means of reviving his career after blighting it in a friendly-fire incident, whose horrors he expunges by drinking most of the way through this book. Through his hangovers, Serling interrogates the men who crewed Captain Walden's helicopter. Based on their conflicting versions, a half-dozen different flashbacks of Walden's fatal battle occur, which probably indicates Meg Ryan will get killed in a variety of postures, heroic or cowardly. Anyway, Serling corners the liars and proves Captain Walden gave her life as a . . . well, wait for the movie and consider this book the script. Gilbert Taylor