Monkey on a Chain

This accomplished thriller, Campbell's fiction debut, boasts terse, hard-driving prose, trigger-smart pacing and an intriguing plot. Battle-scarred Vietnam vet Rainbow Porter dwells in ascetic solitude in the mountains above Albuquerque, tormented by his past and responsible to no one. A man of mysteriously independent means, he returns to the civilized world only when called upon to right some glaring injustice. His quiet existence is interrupted, however, by the appearance of April Bow, a Eurasian woman who fears that whoever set the trip-wired mine that killed her adoptive father, Rainbow's old war buddy Toker, may be after her as well. The pair travel across the Southwest, Mexico and Southeast Asia, making gruesome discoveries about each other and their shared past that jeopardize their growing love. A covert smuggling operation, a U.S. intelligence counter-operation, blackmail, deception and betrayal drive this intricately plotted narrative, which is charged with illicit sexual attraction and haunted by the ghosts of Vietnam. Campbell has all the makings of a top-notch genre writer. (Sept.)