New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993. dj. Hardcover first edition - Granta 20 author's very highly praised first novel - "Set on a luxuriously appointed and hopelessly corrupt Army base in Mannheim, Germany, where the soldiers prefer real-life race riots to mock combat, [this] viciously funny novel is conclusive proof that peace is hell and the U.S. Army is its ninth circle. Specialist Ray Elwood is the ultimate survivor: a high-stakes drug dealer, bureaucratic con artist, and shrewd collector of other people's secrets. . . With its impeccably rendered cast of sycophants, drug burn-outs, and uniformed sociopaths, [this is] a scabrous, haunting vision of a military idled by the New World Order and at all-out war with itself." Basis for the 2001 film starring Ed Harris, Joaquin Phoenix, and Anna Paquin. Cover praise from J. G. Ballard, James Ellroy and more. 324 pp. ISBN: 0-67941508.