Book Talk: DeMille & DeMille, ‘The Deserter’

About 30 years ago, I read Nelson DeMille’s “The Gold Coast,” and I’ve been a DeMille fan ever since. “The Deserter” (2019, 560 pages) is the first novel that he’s written with his son, Alex, a movie director and film editor. This is a story of international intrigue, set in Maduro’s crumbling Venezuela, a country where a wheelbarrow filled with bolivars (the national currency) was worth about $1 (US), and half of that buck was for the wheelbarrow.

The protagonists are Scott Brodie and Maggie (Magnolia) Taylor. Scott, whom we’ve met in a previous novel, is a “high-value” soldier, trained in Delta Force, who has transferred into CID (Criminal Investigation Division) after getting a Purple Heart and earning a bronze medal in Iraq and Afghanistan. Maggie made her bones in Afghanistan also, but with Civilian Affairs, attempting to help the Afghan people. But, she too, is a Purple- Heart recipient, but with a silver medal. Scott and Maggie are paired as the CID team to capture Kyle Mercer and bring him to justice.

Kyle was also a captain in Delta Force who deserted his unit, was captured by the Taliban, and was tortured, starved, and sexually abused for two years before he escaped. Upon his escape, Kyle decapitates his guards and makes a video of himself, placing five Taliban heads on five stakes, while informing the folks back home that he has resigned his commission and is no longer a member of U.S. military forces.