Knives In The Night by David Sherman

Title: Knives In The Night
Author: David Sherman
Publisher: Ivy Books, New York, 1987
ISBN 0 8041 0001 2

Summary:
It's 1966, and CAP Tango Niner is faced with multiple problems: recruiting men to form the local Popular Forces platoon, countering the accusations being spread by a local official who appears to be working for the VC, and dealing with an elusive NVA platoon that has recently moved into its operations area.  

Thoughts:
This is the opening novel in the "Night Fighters" series and is an action-packed read. The author is a Marine who served in CAP units, so there is a fair amount of realistic detail here, with lots of small unit action involving ambushes. The character development is a bit uneven, with the "spear carriers" getting it in the neck very quickly, while various other characters have their backgrounds explained in separate chapters, which broke the flow of the narrative somewhat. This is a useful book for ideas for game scenarios, or maybe even a mini-campaign, as it has three maps in it, including a detailed one of Camp Apache, the CAP unit's base camp. There are 6 books in this series and I'll be buying them if I spot them.

Rating:  

I have the whole series. Much less melodrama than the VN:Ground Zero series. I quite enjoyed it and have indeed used some of the scenarios in these books. Hard to find!

Are all the books set in the same location?

Yes, they are. Very well written and I loved to read them all.

Met the dude that wrote them about 30 years ago, he's a good friend of a fella that was in my dads SF unit in the early 80's (who is also coincidentally a writer, though he did a lot of westerns under a pen name rather than experiential military fiction). Back then I didn't know what to ask, a real missed opportunity with hindsight.

It's wonderful you know these guys.

It's a small world. There was a guy I talked to that did 2 tours in CAPs and was in the process of writing a screen play about CAP which had been picked up and paid for by one of the Big 4, but he sadly passed before it could be finished. I'm pretty sure that project got halted, but I don't have anyone to contact about it. Frankly, I think a Netflix or some such series based on a CAP would be an excellent idea.

I do too, so long as they keep the female journalists and the love-interest nurses out of it...

Are we talking about that damn Danielle Steele novel again??

I was thinking more of the TV series Tour of Duty.