THE INTERNATIONAL PULPWOOD QUEENS AND TIMBER GUY BOOK CLUB
QL 4 by James Garrison PFC Bell, a newly-minted U.S. Army MP, quickly discovers that there's more than a war going on along QL 4, the main road from Saigon into the Mekong Delta. It's old-fashioned crime and corruption. He doesn't want to get involved, just serve out his time and go home, but life for an American MP in Vietnam in 1970 doesn't work that way. QL 4 leads Bell deep into a swamp of deception, mayhem, and death that insinuates its way both into towns the MPs patrol each day and into the old French villa where they live. QL 4 was a highway in South Vietnam. In 1969, anyone going south from Saigon into the Mekong Delta would follow this national route, traversing an expanse of green rice paddies, passing through busy towns and quiet villages, and crossing wide fingers of the Mekong River by ferry. Squat red-and-white concrete posts marked the highway as “QL 4.” These concrete markers—old and battered and faded—mimicked those on the country roads of France. 34
JUNE 2022
