KIA

Kel McKelvey #2

by Thomas Holland

The Pentagon brass make the designations: AWOL. MIA. KIA. Every soldier with a designation, and no man left behind. And Dr. Kel McKelvey is the man to bring those soldiers home — from battlefields around the world.

When a soldier's remains are found in the Catholic cemetery of Thanh Lay Hamlet outside of the rechristened Ho Chi Minh City, a reluctant Vietnamese government agrees to the repatriation of the body believed to be Master Sergeant Jimmy Lee Tenkiller. Tenkiller was a Native American soldier who went missing in the chaos of Saigon during the summer of 1970. For fourteen years, his designation was AWOL, until the Status Review Board voted 2-1 to change it to KIA.

Before the case can be closed, Dr. Kel McKelvey and his team at the Central Identification Lab must positively identify the body believed to be Jimmy Tenkiller. The skull's noble features suggest the sergeant's proud Choctaw-Cherokee heritage, but Kel's instincts give him pause. Using a combination of cutting-edge forensic technique and old fashioned anthropology, he sets out to unravel the chilling mystery of the body's identity. What he finds leads him deep into the Vietnamese wartime black market and into the haunted mind of Jimmy Tenkiller.

Assisting Kel on the case is his colleague and friend, Chief Warrant Officer Thomas Edward Lafayette "Shuck" Deveroux of the Army's Criminal Investigative Division. Shuck has been assigned to solve a series of brutal murders on military bases in Kentucky and Tennessee, and he reluctantly adds Kel's identification to his caseload. But when the two investigators team up, they soon realize that all of their dead men may be telling the same tale.

Dr. KelMcKelvey has devoted his life to bringing closure to the families of brave men and women who died fighting for their country. In KIA, he faces his greatest challenge yet — to solve a chain of crimes committed bydesperate men in times of war and peace. The result is a mesmerizing thriller — an intricate forensics case involving a fallen United States serviceman, from an author who is an expert in the field.

Genres: Mystery, Military Fiction, Audiobook, Fiction

352 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Thomas Holland was raised in Arkansas and yet lived to tell about it. He was trained as a painter and printmaker in Salzburg, Austria, and at the University of Missouri, where he earned his BA in fine arts before taking an MA and a PhD in anthropology, also from Missouri, and later, a JD from the University of Hawaii. For almost 25 years he was the scientific director of the Department of Defense laboratory in Hawaii that searches for, and identifies, missing and unaccounted-for American military personnel. He led recovery missions in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, China, Iraq, Kuwait, and the workers’ paradise of North Korea. During his tenure at the lab, the remains of over 1600 missing men were identified and returned home, including the Vietnam War Unknown Soldier. He is a licensed attorney in Arkansas and the District of Columbia, and is one of only about 100 active board-certified forensic anthropologists in the whole known universe. He is a consultant to numerous national and international groups, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, and is the author of five previous novels and numerous, opaque, scientific and legal articles and book chapters. He currently is the Director of the Forensic Institute for Research and Education at Middle Tennessee State University, and his wife, Mary, split time between their home in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and a tiny apartment in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

Reviews

[Dana]

Good book.

[Nancy]

For some reason, "Ghost Soldiers" and "K.I.A." were recommended to me at the same time I believe that reason was forgotten soldiers, MIAs. I can see the marching army being used as tools and becoming ghosts in "Ghost Soldiers." However, Soldier Tenkiller was used as a tool--albeit a mostly willing one--until he became a ghost in "K.I.A."

It was good to read them together but I think that reading "K.I.A." so close to "Ghost Soldiers" took away from the seriousness of the subject. I won't forget the soldiers of the Philippines or their heroic rescue.

I happily found out that "K.I.A." is book two of a series, so I can look forward to reading more about those memorable characters.

[Sheila]

Murders on the army bases that may have connections back to the Viet Nam war.

[Jen]

In Thomas Holland's second installment of the Dr. Kel McKelvey series, an American soldier who served during Vietnam is believed to have deserted the army just shy of finishing his tour. In 1984, political pressure causes the army to classify him as K.I.A.

When a recovery team believes they have found his remains, the Vietnam government is reluctant to release them; they aren't convinced these are the remains of Jimmy Lee Tenkiller. And when those same remains make it to Dr. Kel McKelvey's lab at Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii (CILHI), it's confirmed they are NOT Jimmy Lee Tenkiller's remains. So, whose remains are they?

At the same time, Shuck Deveroux is personally requested by General Anderson to take charge of a murder investigation at Fort Campbell in Kentucky. But this is more than an ordinary murder; it's the a scalping of a Vietnamese man.

Kel and Shuck cross paths on their respective investigations and learn the two cases are linked. So, they put their skills together to figure out what is going on. Meanwhile, more Vietnamese men end up dead, scalped. The links between Jimmy Lee Tenkiller and these Vietnamese men, all of whom were former officers in the South Vietnamese Army, date back to the Vietnam War. So, why is all of this happening now?

I have one word to share with you about this book - WOW! Thomas Holland sure does have a talent when it comes to writing.

An element of Kel's character that I love is his aversion to the telephone. This is represented in both One Drop of Blood and K.I.A.. I love this characteristic because I share this aversion with him. But the way Holland portrays it is absolutely hilarious. Kel's wittiness is sharp and believable!

The plot in this story is absolutely phenomenal. It's tight, concise; no unnecessary fluff. Each character, each event plays an essential part in the overall story. And the plot twists are stellar. I like Holland's effect of ending a chapter leaving the reader knowing that what he/she initially thought was going to happen, isn't really the direction the plot is going after all, and at the same time, the reader doesn't know now what IS going to happen. You find yourself saying, "just one more chapter" so many times because you have to find out just where Holland is taking you next.

The last point I want to mention about K.I.A. is Holland's use of language. There aren't a lot of writers that really WOW me with their use of language, but Holland has made that distinguished list. There is often a stereotype associated with Southern dialect and colloquialisms. But Kel uses both of these in his dialogue and you as the reader, still respect Kel as an intelligent, educated, competent professional. Holland beautifully breaks the stereotype and uses those devices to his benefit.

There doesn't tend to be an overwhelming amount of anthropological science in Holland's books. These are more plot focused, but I do love the way he works science into the framework, even in places you might not expect it to be.

At the same time, the books aren't overwhelmed by only allusions to science. He presents two different viewpoints of the sound of the Vietnamese language. Ed Milligan, a Staff Sergeant investigating possible locations of American soldiers killed in Vietnam, heard "chickens clucking", whereas Caroline Thompson, an anthropologist heard "music." There's a lot of intrigue in those different perceptions.

This book was just an absolutely wonderful read; from plot to character to language, it's extremely well written and just fun.

[Paul Pessolano]

Thomas Holland has put together an excellent mystery that finds its beginings in the Vietnam War and its ending in the present. The story revolves around Dr. Kel McKelvy who is a military forensics investigator assigned to the U.S. Army Central Idenification Laboratory in Hawaii. The CIL was put together to indentify Vietnam War dead whose remains were returned after the war. Coincidentally, Thomas Holland is a real life forensic anthropologist who is the Scientific Director of the Department of Defense Central Identification Laboratory.

Captain Paul Fick has been sent to Vietnam to investigate the possible movement of American supplies to the Viet Cong. Jimmy Tenkiller, an American Supply Sergeant, may be working with several Vietnamese Generals passing supplies to the enemy. After being investigated Tenkiller disappears. The Vietnamese Generals, after the fall of Saigon, are repatriated to the United States.

Years later, a body turns up at CIL that may be Tenkiller. At the same time, the Vietnames Generals start turning up dead, not only dead, but scalped. The CIL discovers that the remains are not Tenkillers, and in fact, Tenkiller may well be alive.

Dr. Kel McKelvey, with the help of Warrant Officer Shuck Deveroux, work the case to a surprising conclusion.

Thomas Holland makes two statements that sum up our involvement in the Vietnam War. One is the story of the crocodile and the rabbit (you will have to read the book for this one), and the absolute corruption of the political and military establishment in Vietnam.

[Tyler]

I recently read the book KIA by Thomas Holland. I found the book to be very interesting. There were many changes in action throughout the story and Jimmy Tenkiller, the main character, had to overcome challenges he faced throughout the book. Tenkiller was pronounced KIA by the military. Though he was not. Hey thought he died in Vietnam. His friend Paul Fick was always haunted by the fact that his best friend had went AWOL and then was KIA in Vietnam . Anybody would be haunted by that and I most certainly would as well. Tenkiller was pronounced AWOL because of buy supplies and ammunition of of the black market and discret sellers. Tenkiller was part of a group called the Brotherhood of Five. This is where he got supplies from. When the Five settled into America they became fat, lazy slobs that were ended up being executed or scalped. All except for Tenkiller. Overall the book was filled with action and interest that kept me reading the book all the way to the end. I look forward to reading another of Tom Hollands books and I highly recommend KIA to anyone that is interested in action dealing with mysterious events to keep the reader thinking on what may happen next.

[M.K. Carroll]

I don't know how Dr. Holland feels about his students reading his genre fiction (written while he's sitting around in airports), but he does it, and I'm reading it.

So far I'd say that I preferred the first book; this one is a bit more florid.

Update: I had been warned by a friend who read the book that the ending might make me want to slap my forehead. She was right. It did feel a little more rushed than the first McKelvey novel (the publishing world has a fondness for a series to have a new book every year, after all), but I thought it was better than a lot of the "airport reading" I've done. This is solid genre fiction, and Dr. Holland has a gift for storytelling, as any of his students would be able to attest to. His lectures are informative, entertaining, and well-structured, so it is no surprise that he can do the same in the length of a novel. Even if I could have done without the last few pages.

[Robert]

Thomas Holland has a real knack for storytelling. This is the second Dr. Kel McKelvey story and it is every bit as good as the first one. In this one Kel is trying to identify a Vietnam war soldier that is listed as KIA-BNR, as in killed in action body not recovered. The only thing is that perhaps this soldier is not resting at peace and Kel will soon be pulled into a murder investigation on the mainland. The first novel in the series, One Drop Of Blood, was published in 2006 and this one was published in 2007. And these are the only books I can find by Holland. This is a shame because I would really like to read more. As it stands these are two great books that involve a lot of army forensic work with lots of twists thrown at the reader.

[Pat]

Starts slow, but picks up and has a great twist at the end. A Vietnam-era vet who didn't return has potentially been identified in a grave outside Saigon. Nearly 40 years later, a Vietnam soldier now living in the States has murdered and scalped. Two military personnel--an anthropologist and a detective, join forces to find answers. Love the characters. Intelligent and not over the top.

[Jen]

After "One Drop of Blood", I will read anything this author puts out. His real-life knowledge of anthropology, forensics, and working with the military to recover and identify unknown KIAs makes his work a fantastic read. Carrying over Dr. McKelvey as a recurring main character is just an added bonus.

[David Ward]

K.I.A. by Thomas Holland (Simon & Schuster 2008) (Fiction – Military). This is a Dr. Kel McKelvey novel (the first I have read). He’s a physician and a forensic anthropologist in the army. This was a Viet Nam story. My rating: 6.25/10, finished 2009.

[Marianne]

A good read. I am not fond of books that jump back and forth in the dates but I still liked this book. I like a twist in the story and that happened in this book, but I had to read right to the very end to get it.

[Charm]

It was a little slow but I got into it after awhile.

[Carol]

Got a great review in the WS Journal. Not usually my genre, but a good story. Really fun dialogue to read -- might be excellent on CD! Great ending...

[Charlotte]

Dr. McKelvey rides again. Another great story from Mr. Holland. Where will Dr. McKelvey go next?

[Susan]

Very good mystery w/a medical tone. Has a good twist at the end.

[Kellysutterfield]

A good follow-up to One Drop of Blood.

[William Hill]

Things are not as they seem from beginning to end. What more can you want from a mystery with engaging characters.