Reflections on “Up Country” by Nelson DeMille

The narrator of DeMille's "Up Country" is a man newly retired from the Criminal Investigations Division (CID) of the military, living in Falls Church, VA and figuring out what to do next. Part of me was thrilled by all the references to things in my life – I just went to Falls Church, VA, a few weeks ago with A.B., who works in the military justice office of the army (not to be confused with CID, apparently). And when the main character met his ex-boss at the Vietnam Memorial on the national mall, I thought “I was just there a few weeks ago!”

Early in the story, he embarks on a mission in Vietnam, where he’s supposed to solve a decades-old crime with the help of a woman he meets over there (who turns out to be CIA, go figure). The man is a Vietnam veteran, so the book is littered with sudden flashbacks and remembrances of battles and conflicts that he’s experienced. And his female guide has lived there for 3 or 4 years, so as they track down the man they’re looking for, she is constantly teaching him about Vietnam people, government, customs, rules, geography, and language(s).

It’s an adventure story. It’s quite long, and filled with colorful characters, dangerous situations, funny moments, and all sorts of conflicts that the characters need to wriggle out of. All of this, drenched in Vietnamese culture, makes for a really good book that provides the added bonus of teaching the reader about a corner of the world that Americans generally know nothing about.

All that being said, I couldn’t but help but be irritated by the sheer amount of details about battles of the Vietnam War (or as they call it over there, the American War), differences between South and North Vietnamese, ways to cheat the system and avoid persecution as an American, and cultural traditions of the indigenous people of the hills. Those kinds of details were necessary for the story, and yet I got the feeling that the author was just bursting with knowledge and needed to spill it all out, like how students who cram all night before a test scribble facts in the margins before they forget it. It read like an adventure/ mystery story combined with a lecture in school, a sneaky way to feed us as many details as possible about another culture, as if the author didn’t want any of his research to go to waste and was therefore determined to weave every little detail into his story.

So, the upshot is that I did enjoy the book, but that I was also annoyed by the teaching tone. For the sake of an adventure, I was able to forgive the irritating predictability of the love story that developed almost immediately between the narrator and his secret CIA guide as they navigated the country. I also forgave the shallowness of the main character, since this seems to be the latest adventure of a long-running character, and character development is a goal of solitary novels, not adventure series. I read the book based on someone else’s recommendation, so it strayed a bit from the depth that I think I’m getting used to, but like I said: all said and done, it was a good read.