Land of the Morning Calm

About the Book

It's 1968, and Herb Royce, a lieutenant in the U.S. Army Military Police, has been married for less than two weeks when he receives his orders to ship out. To his surprise, he's not heading off to fight in the jungles of Vietnam; he is being sent to Korea instead.

Not willing to be left behind, his wife, Joyce, a headstrong Canadian nurse, follows him and gets a job in a Korean hospital next to Herb's camp. But little do the two realize just what they've got themselves into. North Korea's dictator is desperate to start a second Korean War in parallel with the Vietnam conflict. The snatching of a U.S. Navy ship, the USS Pueblo, is just the beginning of a murderous yearlong struggle.

Unfortunately, Herb has more than a maniacal dictator to deal with. His unstable, alcoholic colonel commands a tactical nuclear rocket outfit and clearly hates Herb's guts. It's soon evident that the colonel wouldn't mind sending Herb back to the United States in a body bag.

In as increasingly hostile environment, Joyce and Herb find their relationship tested in a strange and deadly world filled with spies, black marketeers, thieves, prostitutes and murderous North Korean army commandos. But when Herb rescues an abandoned Korean infant, the couple embarks on a truly extraordinary journey, one that will define them in ways they never thought possible.

About the Author

Harry Bryce is a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel who served in Korea, Vietnam, and Europe. Since leaving the army, he was chief of base operations security at the Kennedy Space Center and is currently director of security for a Fortune 500 company in Michigan.