The Pacifist

A compelling novel about the ravages of a war that tore into the heart of America. In the fall of 1968, the deadliest year of the Vietnam war for Americans, Lisa Thompson, a back-to-the-land hippie living at her family's Vermont farm, is cutting firewood when a stranger arrives to warn her the FBI might be investigating her brother Chris, a Boston anti-war activist who was drafted. Two weeks later, Chris reports to an Army base where he refuses induction and is taken away unconscious in an ambulance. The Army says he accidentally fell. Lisa doesn't believe it and heads to Boston to uncover the truth, but Chris dies before she can find out what really happened. In a quest for justice, Lisa faces two of the most powerful institutions in the world—the Army and the FBI. But the Vietnam War and the draft have transformed America into a combat zone where protestors are under attack as enemies of the nation. With the help of a civil rights lawyer, a newspaper editor, and a Vietnam combat veteran, Lisa navigates a labyrinth of corruption, lies, and murders to confront her brother's killer. From Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Lyn Bixby, inspired by the death of his college classmate in Vietnam, The Pacifist is a debut historical thriller about standing up to power gone bad.