There Will Be Killing

This wasn't supposed to be Israel Moskowitz's war. What country in its right mind would draft a child psychiatrist fresh out of his residency from Columbia University Med School and send him to Vietnam in 1969? But Izzy was here for the duration: three-sixty-four and a wake-up. A year that would change everything.

Assigned to the 99KO, the psychiatric unit of the 8th Field Hospital in sultry Nha Trang, Izzy attempts to use his skills in ways he never could have imagined; not to heal, but to get boys back onto the field of battle. A circle of compatriots soon grows around him – Gregg, the surfer dude turned psychologist; Rick, the tough-as-nails Special Ops commando; J.D., a man of many guises and even more secrets; Margie, the gorgeous, relentless head psychiatric nurse; Kate, the stunning thrill-seeker with a taste for the illicit; Nikki, the endearing, incongruously sweet Red Cross dolly. As their relationships weave and intertwine, the face of Vietnam evolves for Izzy.

But nothing will turn his world upside down – and redefine the nature of war to him – like the mission on which he finds himself an unwilling participant. Someone is massacring soldiers in unthinkable ways with the goal of demoralizing via terror, and Izzy needs to be part of the team tracking down the killer. Before he'd come to Vietnam, Izzy had never heard the term "ghost soldier." Now one might dictate what remains of his life.

Written with the verisimilitude only possible from someone who has been there, THERE WILL BE KILLING is an unforgettable work of fiction brimming with horror and humanity.

JOHN L. HART, Ph.D. has been a practicing psychotherapist for more than forty years, starting in Vietnam where he was a psychology specialist, then studying with James Hillman and receiving his doctorate from the University of Southern California. John is an internationally
respected lecturer, has been a consultant to the nation of Norway for their Fathering Project, and maintained a private practice in Los Angeles for twenty years. He is the author of Becoming a Father from HCI Books, co-author of Modern Eclectic Therapy (Springer), and was mentored by the renowned poets Robert Bly and William Stafford. John’s poetry has appeared in many literary journals and magazines such as Verve and Rivertalk. He has co-authored three
screenplays with veteran screenwriter P.J. Torokvei whose credits include Caddyshack II, Guarding Tess, Back to School, Real Genius, and many more. In addition to his professional achievements, John won the small college World Series and is in three Oregon sport halls of
fame. His photography is featured in Sooke Regional Museum and his Chinese brush paintings, which appear in There Will Be Killing, can be found in Hawaiian art galleries. John divides his time between Hawaii and Vancouver Island, B.C., where he is Executive Director of Spirit Bear Art Farm and adjunct professor at the University of Victoria in British Columbia.


OLIVIA RUPPRECHT (aka Mallory Rush) is an award-winning, best-selling author who began her career as a novelist with Bantam Books in 1989. After seventeen published novels with extensive foreign translations from Bantam, Harlequin, and Doubleday, Olivia has gone on to manage fiction and nonfiction projects for major publishers as a copywriter, ghostwriter, book doctor, and developmental editor. She has served as editor for NINK, the official newsletter of
the international authors’ organization Novelists, Inc., and in 2009 assumed the position of Series Developer for the groundbreaking reality-based novel series from HCI Books, True Vows. Olivia’s moveable feast of a desk is presently near Madison, Wisconsin.