Amazon.com Review
Enigmatic customs, arcane rituals, seemingly archaic attitudes; the secrets that hide within the walls of the Army's prestigious West Point Academy hold tremendous intrigue for the civilian. So much happens to which we will never be privy. So what happens when you take the rigid military school, with its all-important decree of "Duty, honor, and country," and throw in a murder, conniving Congressmen, and perhaps a sex scandal or two? You end up with Lucian Truscott's complex mystery,
Full Dress Gray, a compelling novel in which the twists and turns hang on the subtleties of military life.
Ry Slaight, the hero of Dress Gray, returns to West Point Academy 30 years older and quite a few ranks higher. As a lieutenant general--and the new superintendent--Slaight faces the challenge of running a new kind of military academy--one that includes a multiethnic and somewhat feminized body of cadets. On his first day in charge, a young woman collapses in a military parade. What is at first assumed to be a rather typical case of heatstroke, turns out to be a death from unknown causes. When it's discovered the cadet had sex with multiple men the night before her death, Slaight is challenged to find out exactly what's been going on at his academy.
This novel has it all--sex, politics, conspiracy. Truscott writes about military life with the authority of someone who has lived it. --Jenny Brown
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Publishers Weekly
It's been almost 20 years since Truscott's groundbreaking West Point novel Dress Gray, but his concern with honor, tradition and personal accountability are still alive in this solid sequel, which hands Rysam Slaight, now a Lieutenant General, a career crisis on his first day as West Point's new Superintendent. When female cadet Dorothy Hamner dies during parade, the initial diagnosis is heatstrokeAwhich plays right into the hands of West Point's Commander of Cadets, Brigadier General Jack Gibson, who has been masking his dislike of women in the military for years. It also affects Slaight personally: the dead cadet was a member of Company H-3, commanded by Slaight's daughter Jacey. When evidence surfaces that Dorothy was raped just hours before her death, and that she attended a party the night before she died with members of the Cadet Honor Committee, Jacey is immediately suspiciousAand angry at her boyfriend, Ash Prudhomme, who was at the party and never told her about it. Truscott deftly mixes the personal with the political and uses the investigation into Dorothy's death to confront various aspects of the military todayAfunding cuts, female cadets, drug use and conflicting notions of honor. The stakes are clear, and there is no doubt who the good guys are. If the novel has a flaw, it's that Gibson is more a cartoon villain than a worthy antagonist. This lapse is all the odder because Truscott perfectly depicts the head of the Honor Committee, Cadet Jerry Rose. He's the all-too-modern amoral weasel whom every reader wants to see court-martialed. If the same readers want to give Truscott a medal, this novel's as good a reason as any. Author tour.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
