Most Popular Books by Philip Caputo

Originally published: New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1977.

It was the war that lasted ten thousand days. The war that inspired scores of songs. The war that sparked dozens of riots. And in this stirring chronicle, Pulitzer Prize- winning journalist Philip Caputo writes about our country''s most controversial war -- the Vietnam War -- for young readers. From the first stirrings of unrest in Vietnam under French colonial rule, to American intervention, to the battle at Hamburger Hill, to the Tet Offensive, to the fall of Saigon, 10,000 Days of Thunder explores the war that changed the lives of a generation of Americans and that still reverberates with us today. Included within 10,000 Days of Thunder are personal anecdotes from soldiers and civilians, as well as profiles and accounts of the actions of many historical luminaries, both American and Vietnamese, involved in the Vietnam War, such as Richard M. Nixon, General William C. Westmoreland, Ho Chi Minh, Joe Galloway, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Lyndon B. Johnson, and General Vo Nguyen Giap. Caputo also explores the rise of Communism in Vietnam, the roles that women played on the battlefield, the antiwar movement at home, the participation of Vietnamese villagers in the war, as well as the far-reaching impact of the war''s aftermath. Caputo''s dynamic narrative is highlighted by stunning photographs and key campaign and battlefield maps, making 10,000 Days of Thunder THE consummate book on the Vietnam War for kids.

“Written with Caputo’s customary style and razor-sharp prose, Equation for Evil is the rarest of novels: one that makes the reader think profoundly at the same time that he is driven to devour pages. Unflinching, compelling and engaging, it stands beside books like Presumed Innocent or The Silence of the Lambs and is equally fascinating.” -- John Banville From Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and National Book Award finalist Philip Caputo, a timely thriller that is sure to have you on the edge of your seat On a quiet morning in California, a lone gunman opens fire on a busload of children headed for a field trip, then turns the gun on himself. Forensic psychiatrist Leander Heartwood and special agent Gabriel Chin team up to investigate the case, seeking at first only to solve this single disturbing crime but in time delving into issues of race, morality, and the complex forces at work in all horrifying acts of violence. Part mystery, part psychological thriller, part piercing social commentary, Equation for Evil is a riveting and incisive meditation on violence and the nature of evil.

When Vietnam veteran and foreign correspondent Charlie Gage is recruited by the shadowy Thomas Colfax to assist with something called Operation Atropos, he has no idea he is about to be enlisted for guerilla warfare in northeast Africa. Once he realizes he’s a mercenary, however, he is not at all concerned. Ever since his young secretary was killed by a grenade at their bureau office in Beirut a couple of years before, he has lost all volition. Which is why he so readily capitulates not only to Colfax, but also, and more dangerously so, to every command of Jeremy Nordstrand, the mystical megalomaniac determined to achieve greatness on their seemingly suicidal mission. Set in the forsaken yet exotic deserts of Ethiopia, Horn of Africa is a vividly detailed and masterfully plotted novel chronicling a broken man’s struggle for salvation and inner freedom in the midst of a broken nation’s fight for stability and peace.

1898, Tsavo River Kenya, the British Empire has employed 140 workers to build a railroad bridge. The bridge''s construction comes to a violent halt when two maneless lions devour all 140 workers in a savage feeding frenzy that would make headlines—and history—all over the world. Caputo''s Ghosts of Tsavo is a new quest for truth about the origins of these near-mythical animals and how they became predators of human flesh.

Indian Country is a sweeping, brave and compassionate story from one of our most acclaimed chroniclers of the Vietnam experience. Christian Starkmann follows his boyhood friend, an Ojibwa Indian called Bonny George, from the wilderness of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where they roamed, hunted and fished in their youths, to the wilderness of Vietnam, where they serve as soldiers in the same platoon. After returning home from the war, his friend buried on the battlefield he left behind, Christian begins to make a life for himself. Yet years later, although he is happily married to June, a good-hearted social worker, and has two daughters, Christian is still fighting--with the searing memories of combat, with the paranoid visions that are clouding his marriage and threatening his career, and most of all with the ghost of Bonny George, who haunts his dreams and presses him to come to terms with a secret so powerful it could destroy everything he has built.

A classic novel of Vietnam and its aftermath from Philip Caputo, whose Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir A Rumor of War is widely considered among the best ever written about the experience of war. At thirty-three, Nick DelCorso is an award-winning war photographer who has seen action and dodged bullets all over the world–most notably in Vietnam, where he served as an Army photographer and recorded combat scenes whose horrors have not yet faded in his memory. When he is called back to Vietnam on assignment during a North Vietnamese attempt to take Saigon, he is faced with a defining choice: should he honor the commitment he has made to his wife not to place himself in any more danger for the sake of his career, or follow his ambition back to the war-torn land that still haunts his dreams? What follows is a riveting story of war on two fronts, Saigon and Beirut, that will test DelCorso’s faith not only in himself, but in the nobler instincts of men.

Philip Caputo’s tragic and epically ambitious new novel is set in Sudan, where war is a permanent condition. Into this desolate theater come aid workers, missionaries, and mercenaries of conscience whose courage and idealism sometimes coexist with treacherous moral blindness. There’s the entrepreneurial American pilot who goes from flying food and medicine to smuggling arms, the Kenyan aid worker who can’t help seeing the tawdry underside of his enterprise, and the evangelical Christian who comes to Sudan to redeem slaves and falls in love with a charismatic rebel commander. As their fates intersect and our understanding of their characters deepens, it becomes apparent that Acts of Faith is one of those rare novels that combine high moral seriousness with irresistible narrative wizardry.

Philip Caputo''s passion for travel and adventure was inspired by the works of Joseph Conrad, Jack London, and Herman Melville, and through the years this passion led to a rugged writer''s life, filled with hair-raising experiences in the jungles of Vietnam, the rubble of Beirut, and the savannas of Africa. In the Shadows of the Morning collects Caputo''s essays for the first time, each imbued with the powerful and memorable writing for which he has become so well known. In "The Ahab Complex," Caputo recalls a life-and-death struggle with a majestic giant blue marlin off the coast of Florida whose quarter-ton body "lit up as if a gigantic light had flashed in the water." He recounts his travels in Kenya''s largest national park among the only lions to have a natural tendency to stalk and eat human beings, and where the accounts of their gruesome escapades invaded his dreams. In the title piece, he reflects on a harrowing trip down the Alaskan river that nearly claimed his son''s life, nature''s indifference to human loss, and an evocative account of letting go. In the Shadows of the Morning is a fascinating journey through a lifetime of profound experiences. Adventurers and lovers of great writing will welcome this collection of finely crafted essays by one of America''s most gifted writers.

In this startling new work of fiction, the acclaimed author of A Rumor of War creates three powerful dramas of dislocation, following his characters places they have no business being and into situations that are vastly—and dangerously—beyond their depth. In the Connecticut suburbs, a motherless young man suddenly becomes the beneficiary of a wealthy older couple, whose generosity has unsuspected motives and a sinister price. On an island in Australia''s Torres Strait, an enigmatic castaway throws kinks into the local culture and sexual politics. And in the jungles of Vietnam, four American soldiers undertake a mystical search for a man-eating tiger. Filled with atmospheric tension, crackling with psychological observation, and evoking masters from Joseph Conrad to Robert Stone, Exiles is a riveting literary experience.

When Gil Castle loses his wife, he retreats to his family’s sprawling homestead out west, a forsaken part of the country where drug lords have more power than police. Here Castle begins to rebuild his life, even as he uncovers some dark truths about his fearsome grandfather. When a Mexican illegal shows up at the ranch, terrified after a border-crossing drug deal gone bad, Castle agrees to take him in. Yet his act of generosity sets off a flood of violence and vengeance, a fierce reminder that we never truly escape our history. Spanning three generations of an Arizona family, Crossers is a blistering novel about the brutality and beauty of life on the border.

Kent State: the day the war came home is a documentary which originally aired on The Learning Channel in 2001. The documentary brings together archival footage and interviews with surviving guardsmen and protestors.

From the acclaimed storyteller, a propulsive tale of desire, betrayal, duty, and infidelity—and the explosive consequences of a buried passion The newsman in Luke Blackburn shuns the spotlight when he and his old friend, now the county mayor in Key West, discover stranded Cuban refugees during a fishing outing turned tragic, but he is part of the story that goes out on the wire. When Corinne, his lover from many years ago, happens to read it and reaches out, the news she bears will disrupt his carefully orchestrated life and threatens to blow up his marriage. His wife, Maureen, lace-curtain Irish while he was from Appalachia, is a brilliant scholar who is also bipolar and fragile. Luke has never told her about his youthful passion or the infant that Corinne, barely out of her teenage years, gave up at birth when they split and he went to war. Maureen’s illness has meant that she and Luke have foregone having children of their own. In Luke’s mind, she cannot find out about Corinne or the child. Meanwhile, in Miami, where Luke works as the managing editor at a newspaper struggling to survive in the digital era, his star investigative reporter is slowly piecing together a blockbuster story zeroing in on the corrupting influence of cartel money in south Florida. The evidence she has uncovered links a flashy real estate developer, a legacy of murky land dealings, and the stink of political corruption in Luke’s own refuge, Key West.

"The Mexican village of San Patricio is being menaced by a bizarre, cultish drug cartel infamous for its brutality. As the townspeople try to defend themselves by forming a vigilante group, the Mexican army and police have their own ways of fighting back. Into this volatile mix of forces for good and evil (and sometimes both) steps an unlikely broker for peace: Timothy Riordan, an American missionary priest who must decide whether to betray his vows to stop the unspeakable violence and help the people he has pledged to protect"--Amazon.com.

In the tradition of great seafaring adventures, The Voyage is an intricately plotted, superbly detailed, and gripping story of adventure and courage. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Philip Caputo has written a timeless novel about the dangerous reverberating effects of long held family secrets. On a June morning in 1901, Cyrus Braithwaite orders his three sons to set sail from their Maine home aboard the family''s forty-six-foot schooner and not return until September. Though confused and hurt by their father''s cold-blooded actions, the three brothers soon rise to the occasion and embark on a breathtakingly perilous journey down the East Coast, headed for the Florida Keys. Almost one hundred years later, Cyrus''s great-granddaughter Sybil sets out to uncover the events that transpired on the voyage. Her discoveries about the Braithwaite family and the America they lived in unfolds into a stunning tale of intrigue, murder, lies and deceit.

"A riveting memoir of years of living dangerously."—Kirkus Reviews For the countless readers who have admired Philip Caputo''s classic memoir of Vietnam, A Rumor of War, here is his powerful recounting of his life and adventures, updated with a foreword that assesses the state of the world and the journalist''s art. As a journalist, Caputo has covered many of the world''s troubles, and in Means of Escape, he tells the reader in moving and clear-eyed prose how he made himself into a writer, traveler, and observer with the nerve to put himself at the center of the world''s conflicts. As a young reporter he investigated the Mafia in Chicago, earning acclaim as well as threats against his safety. Later, he rode camels through the desert and enjoyed Bedouin hospitality, was kidnapped and held captive by Islamic extremists, and was targeted and hit by sniper fire in Beirut, with memories of Vietnam never far from the surface. And after it all, he went into Afghanistan. Caputo''s goal has always been to bear witness to the crimes, ambitions, fears, ferocities, and hopes of humanity. With Means of Escape, he has done so.

Traces the author''s 2011 road trip from the southernmost to the northernmost points of the United States to experience firsthand the country''s diversity and political tensions in the face of a historic economic recession.

"Powerful....Caputo''s wisdom runs deep. Few writers have better captured the emotional lives of men." —The New York Times Book Review From Philip Caputo—the author of A Rumor of War, The Longest Road, and Some Rise By Sin—comes a captivating mosaic of stories set in a small town where no act is private and the past is never really past Hunter’s Moon is set in Michigan’s wild, starkly beautiful Upper Peninsula, where a cast of recurring characters move into and out of each other’s lives, building friendships, facing loss, confronting violence, trying to bury the past or seeking to unearth it. Once-a-year lovers, old high-school buddies on a hunting trip, a college professor and his wayward son, a middle-aged man and his grief-stricken father, come together, break apart, and, if they’re fortunate, find a way forward. Hunter’s Moon offers an engaging, insightful look at everyday lives but also a fresh perspective on the way men navigate in today’s world.

A classic novel of Vietnam and its aftermath from Philip Caputo, whose Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir A Rumor of War is widely considered among the best ever written about the experience of war. At thirty-three, Nick DelCorso is an award-winning war photographer who has seen action and dodged bullets all over the world–most notably in Vietnam, where he served as an Army photographer and recorded combat scenes whose horrors have not yet faded in his memory. When he is called back to Vietnam on assignment during a North Vietnamese attempt to take Saigon, he is faced with a defining choice: should he honor the commitment he has made to his wife not to place himself in any more danger for the sake of his career, or follow his ambition back to the war-torn land that still haunts his dreams? What follows is a riveting story of war on two fronts, Saigon and Beirut, that will test DelCorso’s faith not only in himself, but in the nobler instincts of men.