A Review: The General's Daughter by Nelson DeMille

Hardcover: 454 pages
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing; 1st edition (November 16, 1992)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0446513067
ISBN-13: 978-0446513067

Throughout this book you are very aware of the underlying attitudes of the Army towards women and cover-ups. Every bad thing that happened in the life of Captain Ann Campbell resulted from these attitudes. She entered West Point, beautiful and bright, and as her career progressed, became the "golden girl" of the Army. However, the appearance of perfection hid an ugly and sordid life. Her need to wreak vengeance against the person who betrayed her so painfully eventually results in her death. Paul Brenner and Cynthia Sunhill investigate her brutal murder, and along the way, learn about why Ann's life went from virtuous to sordid.

I guess if I had to voice a complaint about this book it would be that there were a few too many suspects. It was sometimes a little difficult to keep track of them. It also was not too difficult to determine who the killer was. I figured it out early on so the ending was a little anti-climatic.

Description from the author's website:

Captain Ann Campbell is a West Point graduate, the daughter of legendary General "Fighting Joe" Campbell. She is the pride of Fort Hadley until, one morning, her body is found, naked and bound, on the firing range.

Paul Brenner is a member of the army's elite undercover investigative unit and the man in charge of this politically explosive case. Teamed with rape specialist Cynthia Sunhill, with whom he once had a tempestuous, doomed affair, Brenner is about to learn just how many people were sexually, emotionally, and dangerously involved with the army's "golden girl." And how the neatly pressed uniforms and honor codes of the military hide a corruption as rank as Ann Campbell's shocking secret life.