Description
"Diverting The Buddha" examines the impact that the politically well connected have on our world. It is a large canvas novel that picks up were "The Quiet American" leaves off. As with the Graham Greene work, this novel looks at the carnage political elites create when they play with democracy. This book is all about conscience and consequences. It looks at Round One of a real democratic struggle and depicts events that are eerily familiar today. By recreating a clash between those seeking well oiled commercialism and a band of Vietnamese pro-democracy stalwarts, "Diverting The Buddha" creates a thrilling narrative, one that boils with intrigue, mayhem and betrayal. Praise for DIVERTING THE BUDDHA "Set in the turbulent Vietnam War, Bob Swartzel's 'Diverting The Buddha' is a highly recommended political thriller. Two Vietnamese and two Americans find themselves swept into a deadly conflict that none of them can understand or control. Written by a veteran of the U.S. Army Signal Corps in South Vietnam who witnessed the brief-lived Buddhist democracy movement, Diverting The Buddha is a driving, powerful, entertaining novel marking Bob Swartzel as a writer of considerable accomplishments." Midwest Book Review May 2002 Small Press Edition "This book certainly took me back to Vietnam. It is clear the author knows his subject!" Vietnam veteran and author Richard Cote "Bob Swartzel's 'Diverting the Buddha' is an interesting and complex story of the 'behind the scenes' manipulation of the Vietnam conflict." Vietnam veteran and author Gordon Mathieson "This is the story of the rise and fall of the Vietnamese Democracy movement. When I arrived in Hue, in 1966, U.S. Intelligence and military were sure that they had put democracy to rest and had pacified the city." Vietnam Veterans Against the War/AI News Letter January of 2002
