A Police Action - Book Review

A. A. Freda’s A Police Action is a raw, immersive historical novel that throws the late 1960s into sharp relief through an unconventional romance set against the Vietnam War. At its center is James Coppi, a cynical draftee from the Bronx who thinks of himself as a hustler rather than a soldier. Stationed in Colorado, he encounters Samantha Powers, a vulnerable, pregnant preacher’s daughter from Texas. Their relationship begins not with courtship but with Coppi’s risky, compassionate decision to help Sam obtain an illegal abortion—a catalytic act that forges a deep, complicated bond tested by distance and the looming peril of his deployment to Vietnam.

Freda’s greatest strength is the book’s uncompromising authenticity. The novel balances domestic life in Colorado and the Bronx with the grinding realities of combat. When the action shifts to Vietnam, the prose becomes gritty and precise, cataloguing M16 malfunctions, bureaucratic tedium, and the absurdities of military intelligence. The tension between short-term draftees (“US”) and career soldiers (“RA”)—whose self-preserving incompetence often contrasts with the draftees’ raw urgency—creates an internal conflict that mirrors the war’s external chaos.

Thematically, the novel explores the unpredictability of life and the stubbornness of the human spirit. Redemption here is an inward act—“forgiveness must come from within,” Coppi tells Sam—and life is often portrayed as “fubar,” where good men perish because of cowardice or stupidity while manipulative lifers like Sergeant Camby survive. Still, amid that darkness, love is framed as a guiding light. Coppi’s admission—“not afraid of dying; it’s living that frightens me”—is a haunting reflection on the greater challenge of returning to civilian life.

A Police Action will especially appeal to readers of character-driven historical fiction and those interested in the Vietnam era. Veterans will recognize the book’s nuanced, authentic portrayal of infantry life, from field training to the petty economies of camp life—the “Coke conspiracy” and all. But beyond military detail, the novel’s emotional core is its central romance: Coppi and Sam, described with memorable metaphors—a “New York City sewer rat” and a “beautiful exotic fish”—become a vivid study of two flawed people who find love and attempt to build a future despite war’s scars and class divides.

Fierce, unflinching, and heartbreakingly human—A Police Action lays bare the cost of war, the stubbornness of love, and the hard road back to redemption.