Mystery & Thriller · TenseA journalist has a friend smuggle heroin out of Vietnam, and then the buyers and the law come after them
Dog Soldiers
by Robert Stone
A heroin deal that begins in Vietnam turns into a chase across California
John Converse is a once-promising writer who has been a war correspondent in Vietnam. He persuades Ray Hicks, a former Marine, to smuggle heroin out of Vietnam on the ship where Hicks works. Hicks plans to deliver the drugs to Converse's wife, Marge, in Berkeley. He learns that he has been discovered and is being followed, and he does not know whether Converse betrayed him or was betrayed. Hicks runs off with the heroin and takes Marge along, and the pursuit drives the rest of the story.
More about this book
Who
John Converse, a writer and war correspondent, Ray Hicks, a former Marine, and Converse's wife Marge.
World
Vietnam and California in the 1970s, after the counterculture of the 1960s has faded.
What makes it different
Stone drew on his time with Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters. The 1978 film Who'll Stop the Rain, starring Nick Nolte, was based on the book.
Feel
Fast and bleak. It shared the 1975 National Book Award for Fiction with Thomas Williams's The Hair of Harold Roux.
Page count and cover shown for: Selected edition
Behind the book
Stone drew on his time with Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters, whom he met as a Stanford graduate student.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- Dog SoldiersWikipedia