All Souls' Day

the long version

A scaldingly hot January day in 1963 is the happiest of Sam Malloy's life, as he watches a mint condition, pink and black 1954 Buick Century being lowered onto the Klong Toey dock in Bangkok, Thailand. The historic 500,000th Buick manufactured in 1954, this is the last of seven originally purchased by Sam's father and six of his neighbors in Levittown, Long Island. Sam has already acquired the other half-dozen. And now his collection is complete, and it's time for the good times to roll. A former U.S. Navy frogman and present co-owner of Bangkok's famous White Elephant Hotel, Sam dreams that the Buicks and his new life in Bangkok will help him escape from the horrors he has witnessed in the jungles of Southeast Asia. Only his business partner, Rathavorn "Rat" Saengbangpla, understands Sam's obsession with escaping their shared past. And then Sam meets Anne Sinclair, a beautiful, young idealist with the U.S. Information Service in Saigon. As two Americans far from home are swept up in the violent, unalterable rush of events in the dying days of 1963, startling truths about a nasty little war propel Anne into Sam Malloy's arms - and both of them into a dreaded world of dubious acts and their harrowing consequences.