Causes of Action

Three decades have passed since Claude McCutcheon and Jesse Hamilton served together in Nam. Though they were best friends while serving in the jungle, it has been almost that long since they last talked. That is why San Francisco Bay resident Claude is stunned to hear a small child crying in his living room. Jesse has disappeared, leaving his son with Claude to protect him. Soon the security chief of Sentinel Microsystems, Barton Jones, arrives, demanding Claude reveal Jesse's whereabouts. The FBI, making the same demand follows Barton's aggressive visit. When danger hits home, Claude begins to search for his missing friend. Claude learns that Jesse went underground because he uncovered the dark secrets of what his Silicon Valley company was really doing and has a disk to prove it. CAUSES OF ACTION is an action-packed thriller that highlights the ambience and excitement of the Bay area. Claude is an interesting character and the support cast, especially the San Franciscans, add warmth and depth to a well-designed tale. The story line occasionally slows down, but John A. Miller continues to provide insight into the various mindsets of Viet Nam Veterans as he successfully did with CUTDOWN. An engrossing novel that will bring accolades to the author.Harriet Klausner

I got my hands on an Advance Readers Copy of this book-which I understand will be available in December. Protagonist Claude McCutcheon is a very modern and yet traditional hard-boiled hero. A practicing lawyer and Vietnam veteran with deep shadows in his past that make the fast-moving action parts of the book highly believable. The action scenes read like verbal lightning. There is also a sense of ideas played out in real life, choices made and prices paid that is genuine in a way not every mystery novel attains. Speaking as a cat lover, I also have to say that in CAUSES OF ACTION, as in CUTDOWN (the first Claude McCutcheon), there is a very fully-realized cat, who plays an important role in the story. CUTDOWN introduced McCutcheon, his law practice in Albany, California, his network of friends in low places-some of them old Army buddies. Like Marlowe with his chess and Travis McGee with his crusades, Claude McCutcheon is true to a code older than Gunsmoke. CAUSES OF ACTION begins when Claude awakes in the pre-dawn hours to find a 4 year old child in his bedroom with a note pinned to his jacket. The little boy, Earl, is the son of Jesse Hamilton from Claude's old platoon. Although Claude has not seen him since the day 30 years earlier that Jesse was wounded on a battlefield in Vietnam, he feels an obligation to take care of the boy for a few days. Clearly Jesse is in trouble and Claude cannot help attempting to dig him out. This tortuous journey then takes Claude into the minefields of the Silicon Valley business wars, close encounters with a beautiful FBI agent who may or may not be an ally, and a confrontation with old enemies and deep-rooted corruption that threatens his carefully balanced existence and his very life. Miller's first book sparked some controversy among a few people I know who disagreed with the hero's less than politically correct ideas. Having known a few Vietnam veterans, I found McCutcheon's views to be an accurate portrayal of the opinions of many from that particular "lost generation." I personally found both CUTDOWN and CAUSES OF ACTION well worth reading for the story and reading again for the writing.