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bookshop. And then, without further delay, he knew he must head home to his family.

    Ben Tyson walked up the flagstone path to his home, a prewar

CHAPTER Dutch Colonial on a
pleasant street lined
    with stately elms.
    There was a good
    feeling to the house
    with its white cedar
    shingles, shutters,
    hipped roof, and Dutch
    5 dormers covered with
    reddish slates. Two
    carriage lanterns flanked the bFac-k-paneled door, and through the fanlight above the door he saw the foyer chandelier.
    He opened the mailbox and extracted a thick sheaf of mail, mostly third-class junk, which reminded him that he lived in a prestigious zip code and was on every mail-order hit list in the nation. It also tipped him off that Marcy was not yet home.
    He tried the door and found it was unlocked, meaning David was home. He entered and called out, "Dave!"
    A stereophonic sound emanating from the second floor 27

    28 0 NELSON DEMILLE

    reverberated through the walls and floor, about a 4 on the Richter scale.
    Tyson threw the mail on the foyer table and went through the living room into the rear den, or as Marcy called it, "our office." The first time his father heard her say that he looked as if he was about to have another coronary.
    Tyson threw his jacket over the desk chair and sat in an Eames recliner.
    He surveyed the room whose original masculine flavor had been altered, neutered by Marcy into a sort of eclectic potpourri of things that struck her fancy. Things that did not strike her fancy were conspicuously absent from the room, most notably his Army memorabilia, which couldn't seem to find a home.
    The remainder of the traditional home had undergone the same transformation. Only David's room, which contained Tyson's boyhood maple colonial furniture, circa 1953, had escaped Marcy's imprint. David had shown a strong sense of territoriality that Marcy could not crack, though Tyson was fairly certain that the boy didn't care either way about the bedroom furniture.
    Marcy was, he reflected, a coercive utopian. Their house was run as though it were a commune. Decisions were shared, housework was shared, things and thoughts were shared. Yet, Tyson felt that he was somehow not getting his share. If nothing else, he thought, he made twice her salary and worked longer hours. Although Marcy would not use Marx's words, her philosophical rebuttal was: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs. Apparently his needs were less, though any suggestion that his ability was greater met with an icy silence. He often wanted to point out to her that he'd fought a war to keep a country -from being run the way his house was run. But that was a lost cause, too.
    Tyson put his head back and listened to the stereo. Primitive. Jungle music. He couldn't identify the song, if in fact it was a song. But he could not deny its appeal on some primal level.
    Tyson drew from his attach6 the two books that he'd purchased earlier, a paperback novel by Picard called The Quest, and Hue: Death of a City, which had set him back another $18.95, plus tax. At this rate, he thought,

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    he'd drive the book onto the Times bestseller list and make Picard rich.
    He set the novel aside and opened the Hue book, scanning some of the pages that did not relate to the incident at H6pital Mis6ricorde. Picard, he judged, was not a terribly bad writer. The book was in the style and format favored by pop historians, stressing personal tragedy, anecdotes, and interviews with survivors--from peasants and privates to generals and provincial governors. And it was impressionistic-the big picture painted or suggested by a series of tiny points Re a Seurat.
    He read from an early chapter:

    Hue. The city had an almost ethereal nature to it. It was one of those small city-jewels of the world that transcended the meaning of city. It was the soul of Vietnam, North and South. It was a center of learning, culture, and religion; an historical and evocative place, the