Set against the military deadlock in South Vietnam and the crisis of Western diplomacy in the Far East, this novel traces the fortunes of a US ambassador who, in moral confusion and tortured by self-doubt, is made arbiter of his nation's fate, and of life and death for the ruling house of Vietnam.

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A diplomat has been sent to Vietnam to negotiate a tentative peace in the midst of political turmoil. The Viet Cong is raiding villages, the Vietnamese president is unbending, and the US has larger, selfish goals in mind. No one is without ulterior motives, and no one will walk away unscathed. The ambassador, Maxwell Amberley, is in the midst of his own personal crisis, trying to reconcile his questions, his frozen heart, and his job's requirements with his own dignity.

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"The novel is a most fascinating account of all the complexities of the struggle in Vietnam in fictional form. The author knows the situation in depth and detail. The tension between the shaky 'democratic' government and the military; and the tension above all between the local government and the baffled USA officials are all so vividly portrayed that I am persuaded by the novel that the best way of presenting a baffling and, to Americans, a hopeless situation is to present it fictionally in a roman a clef. A most impressive fictional interpretation." - Reinhold Niebuhr.