The Three-Nine Line (Murder
Mystery)
“A Cordell Logan Mystery”
By David Freed
ISBN #978-1579623999
280 Pages
Price $29.00 (Hardcover)
Rating 5-Stars
“Well Written With A Good Twist.”
Vietnam. Where Americans died. Where pilots were shot
down and captured, spending years in captivity in the North’s Hanoi Hilton,
being tortured. Now America is seeking a Trade Agreement with Vietnam, and
three ex-POWs are returning to Hanoi as good will ambassadors to cement the
agreement. At a meeting, they are reunited with a vicious guard they nicknamed
“Mr. Wonderful”, who provided some of the more horrific torture. The former
POWs are to let him know they no longer carry any grudge against him or
Vietnam. But the next day Mr. Wonderful is found murdered, and two ex-POWs are
arrested for his murder.
The President wants an investigator sent to Hanoi to
unravel the mystery, and hopefully save the Trade Agreement. Cordell Logan,
private pilot instructor, and ex-Alpha team assassin is called back into
service. His old friend is now heading another unit, and he wants Logan to go
to Hanoi, disguised as a psychiatrist named Bob Barker to act as the prisoners’
doctor while in confinement.
This was a well-written mystery with a good twist. The
setting was a good touch, and using ex-POWs as characters, though fictional,
was a good plot tool. In 1973 I was part of security for Operation Welcome Home
in California where families awaited aircraft bringing their heroes home. It’s
a time I’ll never forget, as those men stepped off the planes, and their
families rushing through the security ropes to get to them. We wouldn‘t have
stopped them if we wanted, and we didn’t want to. We also guarded them at news
conferences and in the hospital. 42 years ago, and you never hear about those
heroes today. Even the war in Vietnam is almost forgotten. But this is a
mystery story, and I highly recommend it to mystery lovers.
Tom Johnson
Detective Mystery Stories
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