Once upon a time — specifically 1968, Bangkok, five hundred miles from a war — there were agents of Military Intelligence who were perhaps less intelligent than the job required.
Colonel Morgan believed deeply in the importance of intelligence work while demonstrating very little of it. Major Harris wanted nuclear weapons the way most people want a good meal. Trooper Cooper was fairly certain he was dying of everything. And Irv Bonner was terrified of snakes in a country that had made peace with snakes long before anyone arrived to be afraid of them.
From that experience, Lon Orey built something rare — a comedy that is also, quietly, a serious examination of what happens when institutions designed for large purposes are operated by ordinary, fallible, very human people. The apricot marmalade of the title never appears. What appears instead is much better.
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