Tree of Smoke

Tree of Smoke is a novel about the Vietnam War. It mainly follows William ‘Skip’ Sands, who joins the CIA in 1965 and works in psychological operations under his uncle, Colonel Francis Xavier Sands, a Second World War hero. The title refers to the colonel’s vast collection of index cards of intelligence, which Skip is set to copy and cross-reference.

The novel also follows James Houston, an infantry private, his brother Bill, and a Canadian nurse named Kathy Jones. It runs from 1963 to 1970, with a coda set in 1983.