If You Buy It, There Will Be No Way Back
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Author: Michael Crow
Title: No Way Back Genre: thriller Few phrases are quicker to strike fear into the heart of mortal man than "We need to talk": hearing it said but once is usually enough. Luther Ewing may not have heard that particular opening line before, but he had already bitten once when the spook he knew as Westley uttered his own version of the signature line: "Discuss?" The last time he'd taken Westley up on a job offer, Luther had ended up doing a bit of ethnic cleanser cleansing in Bosnia. He'd left the former Yugoslavia in a medevac unit; hence his trepidation regarding the latest offer. But he'd found himself between gigs - suspended for six months without pay from his job as a Baltimore PD narc - so he told Westley, "What the hell?" and took the bait. Unlike his usual assignments, which have mostly involved bullets messily applied to brains, this time Luther - rechristened Terry Prentice for the duration - will be retrained as high-end security for a Korean billionaire. Mister Kim is scheduled to pick up "a package" - contents unspecified - from a pair of Russian military men turned gangster. All Luther has to do is make certain that Kim and the package both arrive at their eventual destination(s) unharmed. Given that his past M.O. has been to deliver death instead of saving lives, his mission will require a bit of job retraining. To that end, he undergoes weeks of intensive preparation under the watchful eyes of four CIA field operatives (three of whom are, naturally, gorgeous women). Predictably, Luther falls madly in love with the gorgeous Nadya, his Russian tutor; though he hasn't a chance with the gorgeous Allison, titular team leader. The fateful day will finally arrive after several weeks of inaction. But throughout the long weeks of preparation, Luther has been both watchful and resourceful - and highly suspicious. Something, he knows, is rotten in Denmark or, to be more precise, Vladivistok. When the deal goes down Luther Ewing plans to be ready - come what may, because there's No Way Back. It's been said that flying an airplane is "hours of boredom interrupted by moments of sheer terror." Reading about Luther's little protection gig is pretty much the same thing: page after page of boredom interrupted by an occasional paragraph of sex or violence. Prep for "Terry's" assignment consumes over half the text, padded further with throwaway scenes of the team going clubbing or watching movies on DVD. All this inaction serves only to give Luther opportunities to kvetch about the professionalism of his handlers and demonstrate that he's the smartest of the bunch by an order of magnitude or so. Who is Luther Ewing? He's a thirty-something bachelor who likes hot cars and hot women and gets his share - or more than his share - of both. He's a man who's deadly with any weapon or with his bare hands. He's a man who has no compunctions about taking lives for reasons unstated, but is capable of falling in love (or, perhaps more accurately, in lust) with the next beautiful woman to walk through the door. He's a man who thinks he's complex, but doesn't realize that he's not. The author biography on the inside back jacket of the third Luther Ewing novel tells us that Michael Crow is the nom de plume of an already famous journalist, a writer who has won awards for both fiction and nonfiction. That author is allegedly Thomas Moran, author of The Man in the Box and What Harry Saw, and a Pulitzer-nominated print journalist. The accompanying author photograph shows a bespectacled gentleman wearing a buzz cut and a smirk. But readers need not see Michael Crow's picture (if it's really him) to know that this is a man with a habitual smirk. We know that because of the character he has created. Luther Ewing is probably one of the most unlikable protagonists I've ever had the misfortune to read. He's arrogant, amoral, and unabashedly full of himself - though perhaps this latter is some of "Michael Crow's" personality leaking through. Why else would an apparently apolitical and unschooled hired killer - whose only education not involving methods of committing mayhem appears to come from old movies - say some of the things that are written coming out of his mouth? John F. Kennedy was a "ruthless, ambitious bastard"; the San Francisco Chronicle is a "rag that must be edited by focus groups." Of course, the Man Who Would Be Crow also doesn't like Paul Wolfowicz or the hubris of the nouveau riche, so he can't be all bad... What Crow has done is write a fantasy novel, one in which the protagonist is a world-class athlete (with a half-pack-a-day cigarette habit) and a cocksmith of legendary skills. Doesn't take a degree in psychology to know where his insecurities lie. Bottom line? No Way Back is pure brain candy and an fantasy exercise in self-importance. As a thriller, it's merely average: the action is painfully slow and the underlying conflict poorly defined; the central plot point borders on plain stupid. The only reason I'd look in on Luther Ewing again is to see how the author manages to get him out of the corner he's painted the character into at the end of the book. This is definitely something to be skimmed at the bookstore or checked out of the library all content copyright © 2014 by scmrak
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