Hard Rain

During the Woodstock musical festival of 1969 in New England a secret deal was made between Pat Rodney (a high school dropout musician) and Hartley Frame (a rich senator’s kid with musical talent who dropped out of college): Pat would go to Vietnam as Hartley, in exchange for a new sports car. The car was bought, Pat went to Vietnam and Hartley went to LA as Pat. One of the guys who knew about the deal sold it to the Soviets who start running him as an agent first by sending him to Hartley’s father with the story about the switch and blackmailing him. Pat’s sister blackmails Hartley: The senator hires Keith and cooperates with him and the Soviets to avoid losing his career, and Hartley pays Pat’s sister $10,000 a year to keep her quiet.

Pat as Hartley is captured in Vietnam and given slave labor after being tortured. Hartley as Pat makes it big in LA, marries and has a daughter Kate. Several years later things begin to happen when Pat escapes from the slave camp in Vietnam, goes to Thailand, murders an American for his papers and clothing and through these lands in the States. He takes the real Hartley prisoner together with his daughter and has them drive back to New England. Their disappearance gets to Hartley’s ex-wife who goes after them. The active part of the story is about her search for her daughter and ex-husband; the background plot comes out in the course of things.

Pat’s sister gets murdered by Keith; Pat himself crucifies Hartley on a guitar in the grounds of the Woodstock festival; he together with Hartley’s parents are shot by a Soviet agent, who is shot by Keith as a cover-up. Very exciting indeed.

April 28, 2015. Review initially written in 1992. Novel first published in 1988. Picture source: goodreads.com.