New Release Coming: Recall

Recall by R. Lawson

My sixth novel, Recall, is on pace for publication this summer.

Recall is a fictional historical narrative, a different genre than my five previous novels. Although it features the same protagonist, Biff Roberts, (who you may know from my espionage series of intelligent thrillers,) the story is based on based on some of my real-life experiences that will be revealed as we learn about Biff’s backstory.

Recall is the story of four boys who play on the same championship football team in the 1950’s and wind up in Vietnam a decade later.  The story is viewed through their respective lenses.

Biff is the youngest field officer to serve as Deputy Station Manager in Saigon and his CIA instructors at the Farm deem him a “natural born spook.” His three buddies serve as a Green Beret, Flight Surgeon, and an A4 pilot flying close combat support. Their uncanny interaction provides drama and excitement.

The characters’ conflicts do not end with Vietnam, however. Returning to San Francisco in the late 1960’s, the characters have to deal with the anti-war movement’s repulsive reception, the Hippie cultural revolution, and the burgeoning drug scene, opening up a new series of challenges. One ends up going through cognitive enhancement to recover from PTSD.

And the others… well, I don’t want to ruin the story for you. Suffice it to say, the story gets complex in another series of events that lends credence to the theory of six degrees of separation and serendipity.

Half of today’s United States population was born after Vietnam and most of them know little about it. The history of the Vietnam conflict is filled with misconceptions and controversy and many who lived through it have passed on.

I experienced Vietnam and the San Francisco aftermath in person, but in a different capacity than the four main characters who were in the thick of the war. The story of Vietnam could be told from many viewpoints depending on the tour of duty to which you were assigned. I never had to wade through a rice paddy, lead a platoon on patrol in a rainforest or sleep out in a monsoon. I served as a flight surgeon, an air evac officer. They fought, I served. They were the heroes, not me. God bless them.