For 14 months from 1967-1968, Juris Jurjevics served as part of American forces in Vietnam. He used that experience as background for his soon-to-be-published second novel, Red Flags.

The book is the story of Erik A. Rider, an Army cop who is sent to the Central Highlands to help stop the flow to the North Vietnamese of cash that is being generated from the opium smuggling. The story begins when, 40 years after the war, Rider is visited by the daughter of his former colonel. Some say Rider was involved in the colonel’s death.

From the back cover publicity:

Rider lands in Cheo Reo, home to hard-pressed soldiers, intelligence operatives, and profiteers of all stripes. The tiny U.S. contingent and their unenthusiastic Vietnamese allies are hopelessly outnumbered by infiltrating enemy infantry. And they’re all surrounded by sixty thousand Montagnard tribespeople who want their mountain homeland back.

The Vietcong are on to Rider’s game and have placed a bounty on his head. As he hunts the opium fields, skirmishes with enemy patrols, and defends the undermanned U.S. base, Rider makes a disturbing discovery: someone close to home has a stake in the opium smuggling ring—and will kill to protect it.

Red Flags is due out Sept. 20 and is being published by the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Company.

Jurjevics was born in Latvia and came to the United States after World War II along with thousands of other Displaced Persons. After his stint in Vietnam, he began working for publisher Harper & Row. Among other positions in the publishing industry, Jurjevics also co-founded New York-based Soho Press and led it for 20 years.

Jurjevics’ first novel was The Trudeau Vector, published in 2005 (see our review, Death under the northern lights).