Set in West Germany in 1989 before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Buffalo Soldiers follows the misadventures of specialist Ray Elwood (Joaquin Pheonix), scammer, con-artist and US Army Base Battalion clerk. Elwood runs a blackmarket operation behind the back of Supply and Logistics Commander Lieutenant Colonel Wallace Berman (Ed Harris), that is until the military brass send in battle-hardened Commanding Sgt. Robert Lee (Scott Glenn) to close down Elwood's illicit operation. Things become still more complex when Elwood learns that his new love Robyn (Anna Paquin) is Sgt. Lee's daughter.
The novel deals with the issues of warfare when there is no war and peacetime casualties. In the tradition of MASH it is funny and dark, exciting and thrilling.
'This book may well find a place on the shelf with Joseph Heller's Catch-22... It takes a fine novelist to tell such a sordid story so beautifully - and a brave one to hold out no hope for redemption but the jolting effect of a cold-eyed look at the truth' New York Times Book Review
- ISBN10 0330412914
- ISBN13 9780330412919
- Publish Date 4 July 2003 (first published 11 January 1993)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 5 September 2011
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Pan Macmillan
- Imprint Picador
- Format Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
- Pages 336
- Language English