Up Country by Nelson DeMille Book Review

Up Country sat on my shelf for a while before I picked it up. At 702 pages, it’s a commitment, and I wasn’t in a hurry to start something that long. I also hesitated because I’ve never had much interest in the Vietnam War as a subject. But I love Nelson DeMille’s writing, and this one is based on a true event, which is something I always appreciate about his books. So I finally dove in, confident I’d enjoy it either way.

A Mission Built on Real History

Paul Brenner is the main character, and he’s not new to readers of DeMille. He resigned from the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division six months earlier, after the case detailed in DeMille’s previous book, The General’s Daughter. In Up Country, Colonel Karl Hellman, who happens to be the soon-to-be ex-husband of Paul’s girlfriend, asks him to come back for one more assignment. The job is to investigate a name on the Vietnam Memorial. Officially, that name belongs to a soldier killed in action. Unofficially, Hellman’s people believe he was murdered.

The clue that sets everything in motion is a letter found on the murdered man’s brother, recovered from his body and held onto for thirty years by the American soldier who found it before it finally reached the CIA. Paul himself served two tours in Vietnam, in 1968 and 1972, and much of the book has him revisiting those years as he works the case in 1997. DeMille includes an author’s note explaining he traveled to Vietnam in 1997 for research, nearly thirty years after his own first visit there, and I found myself wondering how much of Paul’s memories were pulled straight from DeMille’s own experience.

Where the Investigation Stalls

Around page 100, Paul meets Susan Weber, an American living in Vietnam who runs a business there and occasionally works with the CIA. She’s there to brief him and pass along instructions for the mission. This is where the book slows down considerably. Paul and Susan spend a long stretch sightseeing together and checking in with the CIA back home, and very little actual investigating happens for a big chunk of the story.

I’ve noticed this pattern before in DeMille’s work. Night Fall has the same shape: a strong opening, a strong ending, and a middle that drags. Up Country stretches that middle across seven hundred pages, which makes the slow section much harder to push through. Not every DeMille book has this problem. The Lion, which was actually the first book of his I ever read, stays exciting from start to finish, and it’s the reason I kept coming back to his other titles. After Up Country, though, I’m more hesitant about picking up his next one without knowing what I’m in for.

Was the Payoff Worth It?

What kept me reading through the slow middle was wanting to know why this one man’s knowledge was worth killing over. I stuck with it all the way to the reveal, and honestly, it wasn’t worth the wait. The information turned out to be insignificant, and the entire mission felt pointless once I understood what it had actually been about. I sat there wondering if I’d just spent weeks reading seven hundred pages for something that small.

That’s really the story of how long this book took me. When I’m reading something great, I find extra time in my day for it and finish quickly. Up Country took me weeks, because I wasn’t excited to pick it back up once the middle set in.

Final Thoughts

Up Country has a genuinely strong opening, and the historical grounding gives it more weight than a typical thriller. But the long stretch in the middle, combined with an ending that fizzles out instead of paying off, makes this one hard to recommend without a caveat. If you’ve read Night Fall and didn’t mind its slow middle, you’ll know what you’re signing up for here, just on a bigger scale. Here is my review of Night Fall. If you’re new to DeMille, start with The Lion instead and save Up Country for when you’re ready to be patient and prepared for a letdown at the finish line.