In the early autumn of 1962, David Marnin, a young Foreign Service officer, arrives in Saigon to be the Ambassador's aide. Though young and inexperienced, he brings to the job a keen intelligence and a rich sense of adventure.

He soon becomes involved with one of the most beautiful Vietnamese women. Unforgettably depicted are scores of characters &mdash ambitious journalists, Saigon bargirls, diplomats, clandestine agents, a disenchanted general, a Catholic bishop, Buddhist monks, the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and one truly unforgettable Southern belle.

This important novel demonstrates brilliantly how and why the United States engineered the 1963 coup that overthrew the South Vietnamese government and resulted in the assassination of President Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother. These actions irrevocably enmeshed us in a situation from which there was no turning back. They led to a full scale war that should never have been fought the way it was, a war that reshaped American, Asian, and world history.

The coup and murder are shown to be the result of policy decisions emanating from a combination of arrogance and political and cultural ignorance endemic to the way this country did business in Southeast Asia (and is still doing business today in the Middle East.)

Day of the Dead, in its depiction of atmosphere and intrigue, and in its use and depth of detail reminds of the best work of Eric Ambler and Graham Greene. But while it is reminiscent in some ways of The Quiet American, its courageous and sympathetic hero is far wiser than Greene's Pyle and survives to tell this unforgettable tale.