Vietnam, 1963, a female Viet Cong assassin is gunning down US servicemen on the streets of Saigon. Firing from a moving scooter and at some distance, she demonstrates remarkable skill and accuracy with a pistol and has disappeared into traffic before anyone has any chance to react. Tasked with hunting the Red Queen down and bringing her string of killings to an end are Ellsworth Miser and Clovis Robeson, two US army investigators.
The Vietnam War is a conflict that has produced a large canon of literature and movies. I chanced upon a previous novel by the author, Juris Jurjevics, completely by chance and loved it. Red Flags told the story of a US army investigator who happened upon corruption amongst Green Berets advising Montagnards and South Vietnamese government officials and it was a brilliant book, so I couldn’t wait to read this.
Once again, corruption is the real villain in this novel, and as Miser and Robeson investigate the Red Queen murders they discover just how venal the South Vietnamese state really is. I wasn’t surprised to learn that the author himself served in the Vietnam War and was a US Army investigator, and as corruption is the focus of both his Vietnam novels (he also wrote one non-Vietnam novel) I can only assume that this was something he discovered in real life.
I really wanted to like Play The Red Queen, because as I say, I loved Red Flags. Alas, while this title was good, I didn’t feel it had the magic of the previous title. Red Flags explored a little told story – the Green Beret units who mentored ethnic Montagnard soldiers and were stationed in remote outposts – and it had a real atmosphere, and the stakes were high. While Play The Red Queen does a good job with its Saigon setting it just can’t compete with the author’s previous title.
That said, this remains a strong title and is well worth a read.
3 out of 5 stars
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