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Don't Mean Nuthin'

A Military Thriller

By Ron Lealos

An assassin enacts revenge in a country melting in napalm ooze and madness.

Frank Morgan, a young college grad raised on Army discipline, started his military career as a Phoenix Program assassin in Vietnam with nothing but faith, confidence, and belief in his country. In 1969, he boards the Freedom Bird and takes a seat next to a grizzled grunt. This is Morgan’s first hint of what may be coming his way—and what he, as a soldier, may become.

Throughout his tour, Morgan struggles with his belief in his missions, though he pushes on and does his job. With less than a month to go before he heads home, Morgan leads a squad of South Vietnamese special forces in a massacre and mistakenly kills a beautiful innocent woman, Liem, in an old French plantation outside C?n Tho.

The death of Liem haunts him and distracts him so that he barely survives an attempt on his own life—which he later learns was ordered by his CIA chief, a swashbuckling cowboy named Comer. This betrayal launches Morgan’s metamorphosis into an avenging assassin.

Don’t Mean Nuthin’ reveals a war-torn Vietnam through a Conradian journey by a man who seeks a higher moral ground and then struggles to redeem himself in a sea of carnage and despair.

Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction—novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
Ron Lealos

Ron Lealos graduated from Western Washington University and studied fiction under Tom Spanbauer for several years as part of the Dangerous Writing group in Portland, Oregon. In his nonwriting life, he has developed, manufactured, and marketed a rapid home test for the detection of HIV antibodies. He is also the author of Pashtun. He resides in Vancouver, Washington.

“Powerful . . . a gut-wrenchingly realistic portrayal of how violence, politics and corruption combine to destroy the souls of people and countries. A dark redemption tale, but not one for the faint of heart.” — Kirkus

“Ron Lealos’s Don’t Mean Nuthin’ is a visceral descent into war and a heart of darkness therein. But Frank Morgan tries to redeem himself from the horror that surrounds him. And survive!” —Stephen Templin, New York Times and international bestselling author of SEAL Team Six and Trident’s First Gleaming

“While reading, I actually felt like I was in Vietnam! It is a brilliant, compelling, yet very realistic military novel that I could not put down. Ron Lealos’s engrossing story provides a haunting tale of the South Vietnamese Special Forces, the CIA, the Phoenix Program and an intriguing assassination plot.” —Don Mann, CO3, USN, SEAL Team Six (Ret.), New York Times bestselling author of Inside SEAL Team Six

"Lealos gets the hierarchies, the ordnance, and the slang right. Vietnam veterans, retiring in numbers now and with time to read, will mostly like it." —Booklist

“Powerful . . . a gut-wrenchingly realistic portrayal of how violence, politics and corruption combine to destroy the souls of people and countries. A dark redemption tale, but not one for the faint of heart.” — Kirkus

“Ron Lealos’s Don’t Mean Nuthin’ is a visceral descent into war and a heart of darkness therein. But Frank Morgan tries to redeem himself from the horror that surrounds him. And survive!” —Stephen Templin, New York Times and international bestselling author of SEAL Team Six and Trident’s First Gleaming

“While reading, I actually felt like I was in Vietnam! It is a brilliant, compelling, yet very realistic military novel that I could not put down. Ron Lealos’s engrossing story provides a haunting tale of the South Vietnamese Special Forces, the CIA, the Phoenix Program and an intriguing assassination plot.” —Don Mann, CO3, USN, SEAL Team Six (Ret.), New York Times bestselling author of Inside SEAL Team Six

"Lealos gets the hierarchies, the ordnance, and the slang right. Vietnam veterans, retiring in numbers now and with time to read, will mostly like it." —Booklist

Don't Mean Nuthin'

A Military Thriller

By Ron Lealos

More books from this author: Ron Lealos