What do You think about The General's Daughter (1993)?
I have seen the movie so many times, that John Travolta as a rough and sarcastic military investigator Paul Brenner is burned into the back of my head. And I really enjoyed the movie, and will watch it again for the 100th time.The book was great, and way way way better than the movie, even though I had Travolta's face in the back of my mind while reading it. This is one of those books I stayed up reading way too late, lost track of time, and had that addictive quality too it.If I was to become a writer this is what I would write about; suspenseful military crime drama, with political overtones, scandalous sex, women in power, strong women, sexual deviance, and psycho sexual revenge, incredible characters, an antagonistic duo of detectives.I would highly recommend reading this book and it's partner book Up Country with Paul Brenner in Vietnam.
—Richard
I've watched the movie based on Nelson DeMille’s The General's Daughter many times, but until recently I never had the chance to read it. I was eager to do so, since I am the author of a mystery novel also involving with a military criminal investigator and some of the same themes DeMille covers in this mystery novel.In The General’s Daughter, Paul Brenner, an investigator with the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division, is working undercover at a fictitious Army base in Georgia when he is drawn into a case involving the murder of a female Army captain. The case is highly sensitive for two reasons: the victim was found on post naked and staked spread eagle to the ground, an apparent rape victim; the victim, Ann Campbell, is also the rising-star daughter of the fort’s commanding general, a hero of the first Gulf War with political ambitions.DeMille blends a hard-boiled narration with a police procedural as he takes the reader deep into the lives of the officers who served alongside Captain Campbell. Brenner, a sardonic Vietnam veteran who is nearing the end of his Army career, is teamed with Cynthia Sunhill, a younger, idealistic rape investigator with whom he once had an affair. Together they dig beneath the starched and pressed Dress Green uniforms of the fort’s officer corps to undercover a not-too-well-hidden seediness that threatens to destroy dozens of careers, including the general’s. They also discover that Captain Campbell was as much predator as victim.DeMille, himself a former Army officer and Vietnam veteran, explores many themes in this book. Officers are expected to live up to a high standard of honor, but in The General’s Daughter he shows that many fail in doing so. Written in 1992, not long after the military integrated the sexes, he explores an Army trying to cope with the still new concept of men and women serving side-by-side. Twenty years later, as the Pentagon deals with sex scandals at the military academies, on the battlefield, and among some of its highest ranking officers, the questions explored in this book are still looking for answers.
—Martin Hill
I read this as my introduction to Nelson DeMille years ago. As a veteran, his take on the Army is quite accurate. I like the balance of the mystery and the humor of the protagonist.As a West Point graduate with the second class to have women, I think he explored a subject that few are willing to get into.Where does the quest for power cross personal ethics? How much is an officer willing to give up for rank? With classmates commanding the 18th Airborne Corps at Ft. Bragg and McChord-Lewis in WA as three star generals, I find the different paths we all took quite interesting.Nelson DeMille is an outstanding author whose work always has a great twist to it.Highly recommended.
—Bob Mayer
