Rating: 
Summary: A good book but a great history lesson
Review: This story takes you along with Paul Brenner as he retraces his steps through two tours of Viet Nam. He gives you an insight from his war memories and lets you feel the country twenty five years later. For those of us raised during this God-awful time, it was a great explanation of what really went on between the news clips we saw on TV. The story was good but the history was exceptional.
Rating: 
Summary: Worth the Ride!
Review: DeMille has come back strong with his sequel to " The General's Daughter." This exploration of Vietman decades after the war combines humor, intrigue and pathos to provide DeMille's fans with this best book in a long time. Okay, there is some hokey stuff and improbable situations, but DeMille's journey back to Vietman is worth the ride.
Rating: 
Summary: On drugs
Review: Unfortunately, I have to give a star rating to this addendum, wildly skewing the curve unless another hundred of you jump in with reviews of your own.After posting my comments, I noticed that the American hardback edition is 576 pages. The large-format British paperback edition, same cover, that I read is 654 pages. So the 50 pages of that edition that I said was devoted to plot would be 44 pages in the hardback copy. I knew you'd want to know. On another subject, have you read the two lines of commentary on "Up Country" from the Library Journal under the Editorial Reviews link? To quote in its entirety: "In DeMille's latest, Paul Brenner is drug back into the army's Criminal Investigative Division to check out a murder committed 30 years ago in Vietnam. People probably won't have to be drug into the theaters to see the film version, due out from Paramount with John Travolta possibly reprising the role of Paul Brenner, whom he played in The General's Daughter." I know America has a drug problem, but have I been away so long that the word has replaced "dragged"? Perhaps it was just an error -- you would have to be on drugs to use it twice in two sentences.
Rating:
Summary: ...A hump down memory trail
Review: For my tastes, Nelson DeMille writes good books and marginal ones. Thanks to "Up Country" arriving in Hong Kong a month or so before its U.S. release date, I've read the book and thought I would offer a few observations to fans and new readers alike. "Up Country" is billed in the blurb as a military murder mystery that took place 30 years ago in Vietnam. Paul Brenner, of "General's Daughter" fame, is back, called upon by his old commanding officer to return to Vietnam and investigate the killing of a U.S. lieutenant by his captain during the Tet Offensive. The reason I say "billed as a murder mystery" is because the action of that plot line takes up only about fifty pages of this 654-page novel. The rest is travelogue, war history and personal reminiscence. DeMille at his best does description and dialogue well. The fact that Paul Brenner of "Up Country" is indistinguishable in attitude and conversation from John Corey in "The Lion's Game" doesn't detract too much. I like cynical, sarcastic characters, and I suspect that it is DeMille's personality coming through, which makes me like him more. And since the author was in Vietnam at the same time as his protagonist, I'm even more convinced that we're listening to Nelson DeMille strolling down memory lane. That is not necessarily a bad thing if you approach the book from this angle. What was troublesome for me, having read many of his other books, was turning the pages looking for a little action. Don't hold your breath. It's a travel book - good for those who never served and want to know how it was, or for those who served and never returned but would like to from the comfort of their sofas. But it was a let-down for someone who was there and imagined that when he finally went back it would be by plane rather than by book. I spent the same time in the same places and saw many of the same paddy fields (they mostly look alike) as Paul Brenner, but rather than experiencing camaraderie with this character, I felt he had taken me hostage for a returning-veterans tour. To paraphrase one of the statements in the book -- Been there. Three times. Done that. Six times - and I hadn't planned on doing it again. If you'll forget you just read "The Lion's Game" and get in the mood for in-country musings and meanderings, you just may enjoy the trip. After all, the man can still write. On a nitpicking level, his two main characters are always smiling. They say things followed by: "He smiled." or "She smiled." Smiled, smiled, smiled... but then they're in love, or are they just good enemies? It got a bit old, but that's just personal taste because the author is doing it deliberately. And I noticed that "none" is too often used with a plural verb, as in "None of them are going...." I like Nelson DeMille and I look forward to his books. And he's certainly allowed to change the pace. But in this case, forwarned would have been forearmed. So that you can gauge my taste in "DeMilles," I've read "The Charm School" three times, "The Lion's Game" twice, "Word of Honor" twice and enjoyed the "The General's Daughter." Even in a foxhole with nothing else at hand, however, I wouldn't reread "Plum Island" or "Spencerville." "Gold Coast" is somewhere in the middle, now joined by "Up Country."
Rating:
Summary: great thriller
Review: After years as an Army Criminal Investigation Officer, Paul Brenner was forced to retire. His former boss Colonel Karl Hellmann asks Paul to meet him at the Vietnam War Memorial. Karl explains to Paul that an American may have murdered a person listed on the Wall. In 1968, a North Viet Namese soldier Tran Van Vinh witnessed an American captain killing an American lieutenant. Tran sent a letter in 1968 claiming what he saw. This letter has just reached the Criminal Investigation Division. Karl wants Paul to go to Nam to determine if Tran still lives and can identify the killer.
Paul wants no part of Nam having served two tours there, but reluctantly agrees to travel as a tourist though he believes there is more to the case than a three plus decade old homicide. In Nam, Paul meets Susan Weber, who serves as his translator. Besides the personal nightmares that Paul relives on his journey, he becomes entangled in a murder mystery shrouded inside espionage that reaches into the highest levels of both nations.
UP COUNTRY is a great thriller that plays out on several levels with each interesting and all tying back to the prime theme of the soul "going home". On the surface the tale is a cleverly designed mystery with spy and political implications, but it is much more than that. The novel is a character study that provides a look inside a person proving you can go home even if it is never quite the same. Nelson DeMille's tale is bound to make everyone's short list for best book of the year unless 2002 proves to be the equivalent 1939 cinema. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: A good novel and a good read, if not Demille's best.
Review: Nelson DeMille is my favorite novelist, bar none, and I have read every single one of his books, and enjoyed them all. "Up Country" is a good solid read, although it is not his best novel, in my opinion. In "Up Country" our old friend Chief Warrant Officer Paul Brenner (from "The General's Daughter") comes out of retirement from the Army Criminal Investigation Division to handle an investigation of a 25+ year-old murder. The catch: the murder occurred in Vietnam, at the height of the Tet offensive. This requires Brenner to return to postwar Vietnam, resulting in a nostalgic series of flashbacks as Brenner pursues his investigation while reliving the fighting in the war in which he participated. The ending packs a notable punch, causing this to be a successful novel. Critics of this novel by and large have noted that it is a lot longer than it needs to be in order to sustain the plot. I agree with this criticism. This novel is almost an excuse for DeMille to tell the stories of the Tet offensive, the Khe Sahn standoff, and other big battles of the Vietnam War. DeMille is a veteran of that war himself, as all of his devoted fans are aware, and Brenner's reliving of various aspects of the conflicts have a stark authenticity that adds a great deal to the novel. Fellow vets will doubtless be intrigued, the rest of us at least interested and entertained. However, it is a fact that this book moves at a very slow pace, without the usual rapidity of most of DeMille's other novels. For DeMille lovers (myself included) this is a plus, for most of us cannot get enough of DeMille's writing. Others may find that the storyline drags in portions of the novel, and lacks the focus and pace that characterizes the best novels (including most of DeMille's). Brenner is the same wise, sarcastic, and very bright character that we all loved in "The General's Daughter" and this vivid characterization, a DeMille trademark, gets the reader through the slow parts of the story. Overall, "Up Country" does three things. It spins a good yarn, does an excellent job revisiting some aspects of the Vietnam War, and acquaints the reader with certain aspects of the modern Vietnamese nation. Overall a good book, if not necessarily DeMille's best.
Rating:
Summary: A MAN WHO WAS
Review: UP COUNTRY By Nelson Demille
I wasn't going to write a review on this book because it has enough reviews written now-some of them very good, but it does the best job of explaining the Vietnam War that I have ever read. Besides the plot is very good, with Paul Brenner back with us after THE GENERAL'S DAUGHTER, an excellent book it's own right. In this book he is the same fearless, wiseass with an excellent personal code of honor. Of course he's involved with the army's Criminal Investigation Division, the CIA, Secret Service and the FBI and if that wasn't enough he starts feuding with the a Colonel Mang of the Vietnam Secret Police, and almost ends up in jail or worse, as soon as he gets back to south Vietnam before he starts up country to the north. He met a very pretty young lady, Susan Weber by design as she was his contact, and she managed to stay with him from one end of Vietnam to the other. This was quite a trip; especially since Paul Brenner's CID mission was a very important 30-year-old murder and he know less about it than the CID or the CIA who monitored Paul for almost the almost the whole trip. This book is worth reading. In one of the reviews it was suggested that he wrote the UP COUNTRY as a catharsis for his tours it Vietnam War, this story could be easily be that. Mr. Nelson Demille writes a first-rate book with some first-class war history. Roger Lee
Rating:
Summary: Superbly entertaining and thought-provoking...
Review: I listened to the unabridged version of this book - At 20+ hours I thought it would take a couple of weeks - Big mistake! -
Character development, geographical descriptions, historical significance, kept me listening hour after hour, and I finished in less than 3 days - Please, Mr DeMille, let's have one more Paul Brenner novel, and don't forget Susan Weber, a worthwhile accomplice in almost any situation...
Rating: 
Summary: Unedited autobiographical novel that I couldn't finish
Review: What IS it with this author and me?? I couldn't finish Word of Honour (didn't care what happened to the main characters), couldn't finish Spencerville, after having read 80% of it (same problem), and now I've quit Up Country after getting over 700 pages through it. To be fair, I should state I finished, and enjoyed, Mayday and The General's Daughter. I was prepared to like Up Country. DeMille and I are in the same generation and although I wasn't in Vietnam, I was in the Navy for 5 years during the Vietnam War. It was my generation's war. Anyway, I was hopeful. But do we need 859 pages of DeMille's cathartic writing about the war? I don't. Yes, writing is cathartic, and of course writers can feel that a book is inside them and needs to get out. I understand all that. But barely-camouflaged autobiography is pushing it. I would have preferred DeMille to write a non-fiction account of his miltary experience in-country, and then an account of his return. There is just something about DeMille's writing, perhaps the glacial pace, that I can't abide. "Get on with it!", I keep thinking. And DeMille apparently has only one kind of male character, the smart-mouth type. This typical DeMillian guy disobeys my first rule of travel, and it's especially egregious because of his secret mission: DeMille gives a lot of grief to people who have power over him, in this case the local Vietnamese officials. Not very bright for a CID agent. And his sweet and sour relationship with the heart throb-de-tome isn't very convincing either. So...my advice would be to find DeMille books on ABRIDGED audio if you must read him.
Rating: 
Summary: DeMille is excellent - but not this time
Review: Nelson Demille is, by far, my favourite author and a writer of substantial quality. All of his books are of the highest quality and a pleasure to read and re-read. Up Country is however, the only exception. Being many many pages in length it is certainly an interesting insight into the '68 Tet Offensive however it is lacking any worthy plot. The novel unfortunately reads as more of a set of war memoirs although I am pleased that Nelson has 'got this off his chest'! I even flew to the Vero Beach book centre to meet Nelson and for him to sign my copy so it's a shame I'm unlikely to read this novel again. An interesting read, but not a classic.
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