Up Country, by Nelson DeMille

Up Country started off and ended well, but the middle was tedious and boring.  The story is about a Vietnam veteran returning to the country twenty years after the war on a secret mission for the U.S. Government.  Unfortunately, the stakes of the mission aren't revealed fully until the last part of the book, so the middle section was just a boring tale of a middle-aged guy on vacation revisiting his old war sites.

Another problem I had with the book is that we could have gotten inside the protagonist's head more.  For instance, when he found out his traveling companion--a supposed business woman working in Vietnam--was actually a cold-blooded killer, we didn't learn what went through his mind right after the fact even though the book was in first person.  Instead, we heard his inner monologue wondering which road to take next on their journey.

Up Country is a good example of Larry Brook's dictum that A-list authors can get away with poor writing and structure while unknowns must write to a higher standard.