The Blue House Raid

The Blue House Raid was a lesser-known conflict of the Vietnam era that played out in Korea, testing American and South Korean resolve when North Korea launched a daring attack to assassinate South Korean President Park Chung-hee in his residence near Seoul. However, this novel of the same name is more than a description of a failed incursion. The author, a former U.S. Army soldier who spent 13 months along the DMZ, develops fictional characters who enable a grander weave of the relationships of the American and Korean soldiers along the DMZ, as well as the Korean people impacted by the soldiers’ presence, especially the working girls in the scattered villages nearby. Even the North Korean soldiers in the invasion are brought to life with crisp clarity in The Blue House Raid, allowing a hint of empathy for these young men who were controlled by their propagandist government.

Author Robert Perron culls from his vivid familiarity of the time and subject as well as those of his fellow South Korean friends to paint not only a gripping and sometimes tragic story, but in the process narrates a fascinating military history of those forgotten times, which are as dire now as they were then.