Expanding on their Pulitzer Prize–winning series of articles published in the Toledo Blade in 2003, Weiss and Sallah detail what appears to have been a command-sanctioned (and possibly encouraged) murder of scores, maybe hundreds, of Vietnamese villagers from May through November of 1967.

Left in the field for weeks at a time and pushed for body counts by their commanding officers, the Tiger Force devolved into a sort of sadistic hit squad, executing and mutilating countless Vietnamese men, women, and children. Some of the soldiers in Tiger Force openly claimed, and sometimes even wore, trophies of the dead.

Would-be whistleblowers and those who openly attempted to prevent the actions of the platoon were ignored by their commanding officers and/or transferred to another unit. Others kept quiet out of fear of retaliation from other members of the force. It was not until a soldier from another unit returned stateside and reported a story he’d heard about a baby who had been beheaded by a member of Tiger Force that an investigation into the platoon’s activities was begun.

In exploring what was labeled the Coy Allegation, Army investigator Gustav Apsey started uncovering evidence that not only was the story of the murdered child likely true but that it was not a single incident, nor was it isolated to one soldier. Apsey went on to spend several years pursuing the case. His final report provided much evidence that war crimes had been committed, but, in the end, no one was ever charged. Those with political interests and the power to say so appear to have decided the investigation was better off suffocated.

Weiss and Sallah sew the Army’s investigation records together with their own interviews of former Tiger Force members and Vietnamese survivors to create a chilling and ultimately very sad narrative. The authors do a fine job of bringing home the horror and pain suffered by the people involved, including some of the willing participants.

How did the military let this happen, and why did the U.S. Government bury it? The cynics inside many of us know the answer, and that is why the story is so important. This book needs and deserves to be widely read.

• House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski: One man attempts to edit a dead blind man’s papers about a famous photojournalist’s film documenting a house with shifting dimensions. Where is the house? Where is the film? Why was a blind man writing about a film he presumably never saw? What made the claw marks on the floor of the dead man’s apartment? The answers may or may not be found in House of Leaves. The story and the book itself is a maze. As you follow the commentaries and footnotes, you will jump chapters and turn the book clockwise and counter to keep up with a text that is disorienting, frightening, humorous, and maddening. A truly imaginative work.
• Gun with Occasional Music, by Jonathan Lethem: How did you spend your Friday? Can’t remember? Wouldn’t regret it if you did? That’s the ticket. Keep taking your pills and keep the questions to a minimum. Do not stare at the talking baby. Do not raise an eyebrow at the well-dressed kangaroo. And if you happen to be Conrad Metcalf and in search of a murderer, do not let your karma run low, lest the law decide it’d be best for all concerned if you spent a few years stacked next to the peas in the freezer. Gun with Occasional Music is a mystery novel set in the near future—a very bizarre near future. It is brilliantly creative, funny, surreal, and sad.
• Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, by Haruki Murakami: Can you live a lifetime within a single thought? Two separate stories are told in one book and… in one mind? One story moves with a beat while the other flows slowly along like a stream. Neither story provides comfortable footing, but both are beautifully told and wound together into a fantastic novel. Deeply affecting.
• A Scanner Darkly, by Philip K. Dick: In the war on drugs, some agents go so deep undercover that their real identity is unknown even to their immediate superiors. One such narcotics officer deals and ingests brain-splitting Substance D as part of his cover. The officer, Fred, has been assigned to investigate a dealer named Bob Arctor, who happens to be the cover of a narc named Fred. The drugs, the assignment, and the environment all take their toll on Fred/Bob as the often humorous twists towards the tragic. A fantastic work that left me mourning the loss of the unappreciated thing—whatever that thing may be for each of us.  
• Altered Carbon, by Richard K. Morgan: Needlecast in to San Francisco, house your consciousness in a snazzy rental body and grab a room at the (Jimi) Hendrix Hotel. While you’re here, look into a “suicide” and try not to get yourself killed—at least not really killed.  You can mess up the body all you like, but if your cortical stack gets fried, you’re dead dead. An old-fashioned, tough-guy detective story dropped in front of a future-world backdrop. There are many big, brain-tugging ideas presented in this novel, which never fails to be fast, violent fun.