IN THE PEACETIME ARMY, SGT. HANK BEAN HAS A WAR TO FIGHT-FOR HIS LIFE. For most Americans, with the end of the Cold War and the seeming beginning of an era of peace, 1990 was a year of hope. For Sgt. Hank Bean, D.C. is an Army purgatory. Trapped in a basement with misfit soldiers, Bean receives a phone call from a mystery man identifying himself only as "Gus." It is the beginning of an adventure that involves Bean with paranoids, punks, a desperate communist and Federal agents. "...You start throwing in with the hapless, feckless speaker and rooting for him, as you do with bent, failed detectives. You have a good time seeing someone have a bad time. It"s fun... Get the book."-Padgett Powell, author of "You & Me," "Edisto," "The Interrogative Mood." "...a tale that wins both heart and mind. A robust page-turner, ample proof that fiction still has the power to surprise, delight and inform. Sheppard stakes out his territory with the risky yet unimpeachable flair that has become his...