Sign-In
Cart
27 Knots
Paperback
Mystery & ThrillerGeneral Fiction
Publisher Price: $25.99
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: Nov 24 2026
Pages: 334
Language: English
An intense portrait of the men who, willingly and unwillingly, executed their [wartime] duties at the expense of their souls. --James Brown, author of Lucky Town and The Los Angeles Diaries
Vance Leford was just a kid when he was shipped off to Vietnam. Along with seven others singled out by the US Navy, Vance was sent down the Mekong Delta on a napalm boat as part of the Mobile Riverine Force. Trained as a sniper, Vance's mission was to destroy key Viet Cong lurking in the jungle that lined the Mekong's shores. Vance was damn good at his job, too--he's got twenty-seven knots tied in his Riverine beret to prove it, each one commemorating an assassination in the name of duty that will haunt him for the rest of his life.
Fifty years later, lured to Washington, DC, for the funeral of a fellow Riverine, Vance is reunited with the only two survivors from his boat crew, the only people in the world who know his darkest secret. Men who were once like brothers to him. Now he believes one of them is about to blow the lid on an atrocity that could destroy everything Vance has fought for, the wife and family he has created from the ashes of loss. The fragile peace he has found.
As a man hard-wired to survive, Vance won't go down easy. Only this time, staying alive will cost him whatever humanity he has left.
Deserves a place of honor between Sophie's Choice and The Things They Carried. . . . [A] masterpiece. --Aimee Liu, author of Glorious Boy
The year's best war story . . . A heartbreaking tale of 'profound love and appalling violence.' --Cam Torrens, author of Stable, False Summit, and Scorched
Poignant and powerful. --David Corbett, author of The Devil Prayed and Darkness Fell
Martin J. Smith has created characters who will live in your head for years to come. --Samantha Dunn, author of Failing Paris
Also from
Smith, Martin J.
The Wild Duck Chase: Inside the Strange and Wonderful World of the Federal Duck Stamp Contest
Smith, Martin J.
Paperback
Understanding and Dealing with Controlling, Intimidating and Manipulative Personalities
Smith, Martin J.
Hardcover
Navigating and Protecting Against Dark Personalities: A World of Lies, Cons, Deceit and Manipulation
Smith, Martin J.
Hardcover
Mr. Las Vegas Has a Bad Knee: and Other Tales of the People, Places, and Peculiarities of the Modern American Southwest
Smith, Martin J.
Paperback
Also in
General Fiction
Elizabeth Spencer: Novels & Stories (Loa #344): The Voice at the Back Door / The Light in the Piazza / Knights and Dragons / Stories
Spencer, Elizabeth
Hardcover
Anniversaries, Volume 2: From a Year in the Life of Gesine Cresspahl, April 1968-August 1968
Johnson, Uwe
Paperback
Philip Roth: Novels 1973-1977 (Loa #165): The Great American Novel / My Life as a Man / The Professor of Desire
Roth, Philip
Hardcover
Selected Writings: Robert Musil: Young Torless, Three Women, the Perfecting of a Love, and Other Writings
Musil, Robert
Agee, Joel
Paperback
Before Gatsby: The First Twenty-Six Stories
Fitzgerald, F. Scott
Bruccoli, Matthew J.
Baughman, Judith
Paperback