Tucker's Last Stand, The Blackford Oakes Mysteries

A CIA agent goes from the White House swimming pool to the sweltering jungles of Vietnam in this novel in the New York Times–bestselling series: “A romp” (The Wall Street Journal).

It starts with a naked president. Blackford Oakes, the most elegant spy in the CIA, meets Lyndon B. Johnson at the White House swimming pool, and has no choice but to accept the president’s invitation to skinny-dip. Even naked, Johnson is all business, lambasting Oakes and the CIA for allowing the continued infiltration of guerillas into South Vietnam. Johnson demands for Oakes to fix it, and the agent can’t refuse—it’s impossible to say no to a stark-naked Texan.

Oakes teams up with hardened mercenary Tucker Montana, and they take to the Ho Chi Minh Trail. After slogging over hundreds of miles of jungle, they hit upon a brilliant plan to stop the North’s clandestine war in its tracks. But as the 1964 election turns bitter, Oakes finds that politics and war do not mix.

Tucker’s Last Stand is the 9th book in the Blackford Oakes Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.