Full Dress Gray

I read Lucian Truscott's first novel, Dress Gray, many years ago and really liked it. It gave an intriguing view of what it was like to be a cadet at West Point. In one word, it was brutal. Who, I wondered, would ever want to go through such humiliation, but it fascinated me akin to staring at a car wreck.

Too bad Truscott apparently only had one (good) novel in him. I suspect Dress Gray's authenticity had to do with the fact that it was largely autobiographical. Certainly the semi-sequel, Full Dress Gray, is in no way a comparable novel.

If you have a predictable plot, telegraphing the solution of the murder mystery in the third chapter, populating the book with one nasty general, one earnest cadet, and one wise good man, you aren't going to excite or intrigue your readers. If the author twists the plot with coincidences too neatly convenient to be believed, one might keep reading, but perhaps with more disbelief than enjoyment.

What I resent most of all is what happened to the main character, Ry Slaight. In Dress Gray, he was an interesting person -- flawed, but stubborn in his determination to solve the mystery of a dead cadet. This man, thirty years later, has lost almost everything that made him interesting. In Full Dress Gray, he has dinner with his wife. They talk about food and wine. He goes to his office, gives a few orders, but because of his position he stays out of the investigation. At the end, he gets to embarass a congressman in a Congressional hearing, but other than that, he doesn't act and really doesn';t seem anything like the character from the first book. Well, what fun is that?

Sorry to say it, because I've also recently read another of his novels, Heart of War, and it wasn't any better. So on the basis of available data, I have to say that Truscott is a one-hit wonder.