The Monsoon Killed the Tiger (Paperback) by Jack Lyndon Thomas

"We have unfinished business."On receiving a cryptic message from his former interpreter postmarked 25 June 2002, Kannon Ballard aborts a motorcycle adventure in the San Juan Mountains and returns to Việt Nam, a country he has desperately wanted to forget. A hard-drinking divorcee, Kannon harbors disgrace due to an ambush that annihilated his patrol, after which he was relieved of command and threatened with a court-martial.In Sài Gòn, Kannon finds the interpreter near death, able only to reveal a series of numbers and seemingly incomprehensible words. In his search for truth, Kannon confronts a vicious ex-Việt Cộng cell leader turned importer-exporter and the retired American infantry major who authored the condemning 1970 After Action Report.Kannon's dogged perseverance draws him into a web of past and present atrocities, conspiracy, bootlegged weapons, drug trafficking, and passion, which thrusts him into a combative climax on a storm-ridden night in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of New Mexico.The story's strength lies in its gritty conflicts and complex characters shaped by their vastly different cultures and religions.