Books: Peeling the Army Onion

THE INVESTIGATING OFFICER by Frederick L. Keefe. 406 pages. Delacorfe. $5.95.

The Army Jeep slows as it corners on a bumpy, narrow forest road. From the back seat, two wild-eyed German SS troopers lunge uncertainly, then bolt for the nearby wood. A pistol crackles, and the running Germans plop forward on their faces. They were shot while attempting to escape, reports the U.S. Army lieutenant who gunned them down. Not so, insists a civilian witness: the troopers had been commanded to bolt and then were callously murdered. Getting at the truth turns out to be like peeling through several skins of an onion. First-Novelist Frederick Keefe, who is an editor of The New Yorker, conducts his unhappy murderer-lieutenant to a surprise ending. But it is about the only surprise in this otherwise pat and overseemly saga.