The Prisoners of Quai Dong.

New York, NY New American Library: Signet, 1968. Paperback First Ed thus; First Printing indicated. First Ed thus; First Printing indicated. Very Good+ in Wraps: shows indications of very light use; two tiny dings at lower front hinge; very faint crease at lower front corner; pages tanned with age; light wear to extremities; mild rubbing to sheen of wrapper covers; binding square and secure; text clean. Remains a handsome copy. NOT a Remainder. NOT a Book-Club Edition. NOT an Ex-Library copy. 12mo. 160pp. Mass Market Paperback. The Prisoners of Quai Dong has faded into obscurity as has its author, Victor Kolpacoff. In the late 1960s it received critical success. It was Kolpacoff`s first of two novels. The Prisoners is about the torture of a Vietnamese youth suscepted of aiding the Vietcong and found with weaponry. The novel`s protagonist, Krieger,is a court-martialed lieutenant serving time in a military prison for disobeying an order to engage in an ambuse apparently for conscientious reasons. Krieger is summoned to a shack near the prison to assist in an interrogation of the youth because Krieger has a working knowledge of Vietnamese. Krieger is repelled by the method used to extract information through torture. But gradually Krieger is drawn as a enabler and rewarded. What is extraordinary about reading Prisoners today is its presage of Abu Ghraib and its ilk in this time. The novel speaks in sensitive tone to the dilemma of the moral man attempting to resist the immoral demand of war and ultimately being captured by it. Kolpacoff`s style is spare and never sentimental. The scenes of torture are tough to read. The author wants us to confront evil the hard way. In sum, I echo the 1968 reviewers-a masterpiece.