THE COMMANDER

Hardcover July 3, 2002
Putnam Pub Group
ISBN: 0399148825

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"Davis (The Colonel) combines convincing police procedure with plenty of head-scratching clues, twists and dead ends. His portrayal of South Korean culture is vivid and revealing, a superb backdrop for a bona fide thriller."
-Publishers Weekly

DESCRIPTION

Unfairly passed over for promotion, disillusioned Air Force investigator Major Burton Webber has resigned from the service to work in his Korean wife's jewelry store, located in the red-light district outside South Korea's Osan Air Base. When an old friend, the commanding general's executive officer, approaches him about solving the brutal murder of a beautiful Amerasian bar girl, Webber reluctantly agrees.

After discovering the shocking secret behind the killing, Webber finds his hunt for the murderer blocked by those at the highest level of the Korean and American governments. With reputations and lives teetering in the balance, Webber searches for the truth, never knowing if he is to be the next victim...or whom to trust.

Davis' fourth novel is a chilling murder mystery set in Song-tan, South Korea, where racism, danger and corruption abound. Former air force criminal investigator Maj. Burt Webber is now a civilian living with his wife, Chung-hee, helping her run a jewelry store in the seedy bar district near a U.S. air base. He has resigned from the air force in disgust after a flap with his general over his own marriage to a foreign national. When a local bar girl is brutally murdered in a ritzy apartment, Burt's old pal, Col. Ray Johnson, asks him to help solve the crime. Strings are pulled to get him back on the job, but none of his superiors' assurances add up and he is not even sure who he is working for. Burt and his new partner, Lt. Susan Torres, a tough military cop, work closely with Sammy, a Korean police detective who has learned most of his English from American action movies. They believe that American and Korean officials want the case solved, but there's a stink of cover-up and conspiracy after all, who really cares about another dead bar girl? Even Ray lies through his teeth, and it takes a while for Burt to realize he's been had. The truth is, nobody wants the murder solved, and Burt is just an expendable patsy in a game of geopolitics where saving face and promoting business are most important. Davis (The Colonel) combines convincing police procedure with plenty of head-scratching clues, twists and dead ends. His portrayal of South Korean culture is vivid and revealing, a superb backdrop for a bona fide thriller.
-Publishers Weekly

A fourth military thriller from Davis (The Colonel, 2001, etc.), this about a military criminal investigation that turns on a dead woman and a military cover-up. Nelson DeMille opened up this territory in The General's Daughter, and while The Commander lacks that novel's background density and rounded characters, Davis speeds his plot with more hooks, twists, and turns per chapter than DeMille would dream of. Major Burton Webber, former chief of the Osan Air Base Office of Special Investigations in South Korea, resigned his commission after 15 years' service when Lieutenant General Harry Muller turned down his strongly deserved promotion for reasons Burt saw as racist. Burt is married to Chung-hee, a Korean educated in the American South and still carrying a southern accent, and she was never accepted by officers' wives on the base. So Burt goes to work in the jewelry store Chung-hee inherited from her father in Song-tan, a town near the base. Only a month later, Ambassador Gregson demands that Commander Muller hire Burt on a special commission to investigate the murder of a bar-girl in Song-tan's red-light district. Against his will, Burt is talked into accepting a $7,000 monthly retainer from the air base. Why? Because he's hustled by former best friend Colonel Roy Johnson. Evidence points to an American murderer, and if that's true it must be covered up to preserve the peace. Burt is joined in his investigation by a jazzy but brilliant Korean detective, who must cover up if the perp turns out to be Korean, and by Lieutenant Susan Torres, the base's tough-talking but dogged investigator. The procedural gets bloody with the corpse of the bar-girl, slit open from pelvis to sternum with atwo-month fetus removed. At heart, though, the deeper tale lies in the mores of the Koreans. Davis, himself the son of an American ambassador and a Chinese mother, has a cultural advantage in telling this story. Jet-fueled.
-Kirkus Reviews

I had two reasons for writing this story. First, I wanted to provide the reader with an entertaining murder thriller with more than a usual serving of plot twists. Second, I wanted the reader to gain some insight into the culture in which the story is based.

As the son of an American diplomat and a Chinese mother, I spent most of my formative years living in Asia, primarily the Philippines, Thailand, and South Korea. Later, while serving in the military, I also was stationed at a base in South Korea, which explains my familiarity with the red light district I write about. Besides giving me a taste for bad beer, my experiences taught me to appreciate much about the people in this part of the world: their incredibly strong work ethic, their inherent sense of integrity and loyalty, their concept of total selflessness, and their belief in placing the family unit above all else. The list of admirable qualities is endless, but as with any society, there is also a darker side.

At this point I'd like to mention that the judgments in this story are my own and are seen through the prism of an American's eyes. I'd like to think that my background as a half-Chinese kid growing up in Asia allows me some perspective, and I hope it's a fair one. My intent is not to caste stones at any one culture per se, but to point out an injustice that exists among a segment of the population who are powerless fight back.

In the red light district, I've seen the shame in a young girl's eyes as she disappears down an alley with her third or fourth or tenth john of the night. I've met bar girls who dulled themselves almost senseless with booze and drugs to insulate themselves from that shame. I've talked to these same girls, and asked them why they didn't just quit and go home. The answer was always the same.

They can't.

So night after night, they hustle for drinks, hoping the next American GI they meet will be their ticket out. It rarely happens, and when their looks begin to fade... Well, you can probably imagine the rest.

Anyway, I think a seedy bar scene is a good setting for a murder. As you read this, please know that my intent was not to embellish or disparage. I just thought the story of these girls and the life they're forced to lead is worth thinking about. Even for a little while.