Historical Fiction · DarkA young CIA officer joins his uncle's secret operation in Vietnam, and the war and the truth drift apart
Tree of Smoke
A young CIA officer is drawn into his uncle's secret work in Vietnam
Skip Sands is a new CIA psychological-operations officer, and his uncle, Colonel Francis Xavier Sands, is a World War II hero who has long worked as a covert operator. The Colonel assigns Skip to copy and cross-reference a huge set of index cards he calls the Tree of Smoke, which he believes holds vital intelligence. Skip is later sent to Vietnam, where the Colonel runs a separate operation to map Viet Cong tunnels. After heavy losses in the Tet offensive, the Colonel's conduct draws scrutiny, and Skip begins to believe his uncle is coming undone.
More about this book
Who
Skip Sands, a young CIA officer, his uncle Colonel Sands, the brothers James and Bill Houston, and a Canadian aid worker named Kathy Jones.
World
Vietnam and the Philippines from 1963 to 1970, with a final section in 1983.
What makes it different
Bill Houston, one of the brothers, was the main character of Johnson's first novel, Angels (1983). The title comes from three passages in the Bible.
Feel
Long, dark and hard to pin down. It won the 2007 National Book Award for Fiction.
Page count and cover shown for: Selected edition
Further reading
- Tree of SmokeWikipedia