Six crime books that explore the experience of veterans

Siobhan Adcock is the author of the novels, The Barter and The Completionist.

At CrimeReads she tagged "a few mysteries and thrillers by and about veterans that you might not have already read, and that open up an understanding of how combat experience can shape a story, and its storyteller," including:

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

This Pulitzer Prize-winning espionage novel follows an undercover agent for the North Vietnamese Army, embedded in South Vietnam during the fall of Saigon and subsequently living undercover in Los Angeles. Fast-paced and darkly funny, the book offers a perspective on the Vietnam War decidedly different from what American moviegoers and readers typically see­—in fact, in one section, the anonymous main character serves as a consultant on a film that sounds suspiciously like Platoon or Apocalypse Now, and spectacularly fails in his efforts to convince the director to add even a tiny bit of nuance to the film’s vision.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Sympathizer is among Shelley Wood's five top epistolary novels.

--Marshal Zeringue