Director and screenwriter Duncan (Courage Under Fire) returns with an effective tale about murder on a military base in a time of downsizing. Lt. Col. Meredith Cleon, a career army officer with her eye on a general's star, is handed a crummy posting as the new provost marshal of Fort Hazelton, a decrepit Indiana base. Her first day on the job is an unusually full one: someone has brutally murdered the aide of the base's general; a smuggling operation has been uncovered; and hate-crime graffiti is turning up around the base. The latter is of particular annoyance to Colonel Levy, with whom Meredith has a sordid history. Marshaling her troops (which include a plucky female sergeant, a quasi-civilian investigator and the world's most efficient secretary), Meredith attempts to solve all the crimes at once. This is made particularly difficult by a second murder and the discovery that weapons are being stolen, possibly by a local militia. Duncan doles out Meredith's background, her reasons for staying in the military after reaching the 20-year mark and the difficulties of being a female officer. But his most pointed observations are those of a military run like a corporation, with cost-cutting measures hamstringing officers while giving tyrannical power to the managers who control the purse strings. The state of Meredith's base (and the army as a whole) is nicely summed up by one of her overworked subordinates: We're understaffed, overextended, and shortchanged"but we manage. Practically begging to be made into a film, this succeeds as a novel of intrigue on its own merits. (June 3) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
A feisty female career officer keeps sexist pigs in line and a military thriller on-target. Lieutenant Colonel Meredith ("Mere") Cleon arrives at Fort Hazelton, Indiana, half-convinced that someone important doesn't like her. It isn't so, someone important, her commanding general, insists. True enough, the base is a backwater these days, closure looming, but "she's a noble old place" and worth a good soldier's best effort. Quintessential good soldier, Meredith commits herself to the task. But, as she quickly discovers, it is one whale of a task. Meredith is Fort Hazelton's provost marshal-chief law-enforcement officer-and before she can say labor of Hercules she's confronted with a homicide. Plus a heinous hate crime. Plus a hijacking-of guns and ammo-that's got the "higher-and-higher" echelon thoroughly antsy. To compound matters, the murder victim turns out to be Lieutenant Georgia Carnes, a young, pretty, popular aide to a general, guaranteeing the closest possible scrutiny from a variety of bosses. And to top it off, Meredith's immediate superior happens to be Colonel J. Peter Levy, against whom Meredith once brought charges of sexual harassment. Though they were warranted, the charges didn't stick, but what has stuck is a bad enemy's active animosity. Still, we're talking the stuff of heroes, and within four days mighty Mere solves her crimes, gets a handle on some knotty domestic affairs (including her love life), all the while earning the loyalty-pretty sure to be undying-of a heretofore skeptical but now unreservedly admiring staff. A bit too good to be true, but Meredith is on the whole easy to like in an easy-to-take entertainment by the author of Courage Under Fire (1996),which, as a movie, starred Denzel Washington and Meg Ryan.
