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Read The General's Daughter (1993)

The General's Daughter (1993)

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Series
Rating
4.05 of 5 Votes: 1
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ISBN
0446364800 (ISBN13: 9780446364805)
Language
English
Publisher
grand central publishing

The General's Daughter (1993) - Plot & Excerpts

This was a a really good story, but it lost a star for being first person which really jars me off and the badly written romantic element. I doubt this will be for everyone,The violent and sexual scenes are not written gratuitously but they don't need to be, they provide a chilling enough picture.The themes - murder, rape, betrayal, divided loyalty and psychology, black ops, the place of women in the military - are sometimes unpleasant but ultimately interesting. I had already seen the movie a number of times but for some reason, I had never read the book - it is normally the other way around. There are some fairly big differences between the book story and the screenplay but they are rational changes - apart from changing the daughter's name from Ann to Elizabeth which I don't see the point of at all...Knowing how the story was going to end didn't make the book any less enjoyable, however as in the film the romantic story line between the two investigators is irritating and adds nothing at all to the story.Paul Brennan is a military CID officer working another case at Fort Hadley, Georgia, when he is asked to investigate the murder and suspected rape of The General's daughter - herself a US Army captain.Her body is found on the base and it seems likely the murderer had a personal connection to the Captain Campbell.Brennan is unwillingly partnered with an army rape investigator, Cynthia Sunhill - a woman whom he has had a tacky liaison with in the past - unfortunately they decide to re-kindle this and make us read about. It is a tad ironic that Brennan goes around threatening to arrest other officers for lack of morals, when his own conduct leaves a lot to be desired...As the investigation progresses, Sunhill and Brennan find themselves up against The Pentagon, the clock, The FBI, local police and various Generals. Everyone from Daddy General through to the Chaplain could have reason to want Captain Campbell dead. Finding out who was guilty turns out to be kind of tricky because it seems like the entire base and some off base are responsible for Elizabeth's downfall, if not directly for her murder.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I thought I had it figured out early on…and then, rethought my first suspect and came to my second suspect and then I I rethought ...SPOILER ALERTI figured out that she was raped at West Point and rather than stand up for her, get justice for his daughter, the general forced his daughter into blocking justice for the good of the army and West Point and his career. Hah!Paul states that he thinks that the General has paid the supreme price.So not true. His daughter paid the supreme price, and then she had to suffer through her father's betrayal. That must've hurt thousand times worse than the rape. What he did was basically, whore her out for his career. Not to mention mention how many other women those rapists went on to torture. I bet a billion $ she wasn't their last. After all it was so easy and no consequences. Just like so many actual real-life rapes today. Some excellent quotes;"Who ever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look long into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you."You never diddle where you work. People laugh.Anger is not going to change anything that happened, and vindictiveness is not going to bring justice.I am my own knight. I am my own dragon, and I live in my own castle. Now I am going to read a Spencer Quinn book. I am so ready for light and bright.

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

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