No Way Back [Hardcover]

Michael Crow (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 31, 2005

Half-Vietnamese, half-black, Baltimore county cop Luther Ewing is known as “the Comanche” to his Gulf War buddies, “Shooter” to his fellow mercenaries in Bosnia, and “Five-O” to the Baltimore narc squad he works with. But after being suspended from duty for six months as the scapegoat in a case gone bad, Luther goes undercover as Terrance Prentice, working for the CIA, something he swore he’d never do again. His job--guarding a South Korean business man with ties to the US government. The deal--trading two million dollars for some advanced technology with some renegades from the Russian military. Only Luther doesn’t know the whole score. And the only people on his side may be the very people he should fear.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Baltimore cop Luther Ewing, having just received a six-month suspension from his narc squad job, takes on a CIA mission to fill the down time. An ex–Special Forces spook with a long history of mass mayhem, Luther's now headed for a dicey bodyguarding scenario in Korea and Vladivostok. He suffers from a head wound that forces him to take medication four times a day, but the injury hasn't dulled his impressive skills. He's a master of any number of weapons systems, but the book, the third in a series (Red Rain; The Bite), focuses mostly on the setup and training for the mission. His controllers are two beauties, Nadya and Allison, and an old partner from his Bosnian days, Westley. Their job is to protect a wealthy South Korean making a mysterious deal with a pair of devious Russian generals. As always in these sorts of adventures, double-crosses, triple-crosses and more are expected and supplied. The real fun is in trying to figure out who's in charge, what the real game is and how to tell the good guys from the bad. Luther performs with his usual deadly grace, and Crow lays it all out with style and strength. The action takes a while to arrive, but once there it's swift, brutal and rewarding.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Luther Ewing's ethnicity--half Vietnamese, half black--isolates him. Groups won't accept him until he proves himself, as he did in the Gulf War and recently as an undercover narc for the Baltimore PD. Scapegoated in a politically sensitive case gone sour, Ewing is suspended without pay for six months. Out of the shadows walks his former CIA handler with a short-term job: bodyguard a South Korean businessman through a complex money-for-information deal with a cadre of disaffected Russian military officers. After training in Washington, Luther is on the job, and--as readers of espionage fiction expect--nothing is as expected, all relationships are suspect, and few of the players will survive. The previous two entries in the Ewing series--The Bite (2003) and Red Rain (2002)--are violent, intelligent cop thrillers. Crow's foray into Ludlumesque territory, though, is a definite misstep. The training section is far too long, and the plot is confusing rather than intricate. A disappointing entry in what remains, nevertheless, a promising series. Wes Lukowsky
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Harper (May 31, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060725834
• ISBN-13: 978-0060725839
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,742,587 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Luther goes to Korea, July 15, 2005

By 

Colin P. Lindsey (Manchester, NH) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: No Way Back (Hardcover)

The adventures of Luther Ewing continue in another ho-hum edition. In this installment, the third, the lack characterization I noted in earlier reviews completely plummets to a new low. Luther gets contacted to do another job for the CIA, accepts, and winds up in a safe house/training facility with three gorgeous, intelligent, twenty-somethings and one ken clone.

The novel drags through the first half of the book, covering Luther's training, and the reader has to put up with the cardboard, beautiful people Crow populates his novel with and the hormonal responses they engender. The action picks up a little in the second half as Luther heads to California, then Korea for his assignment. The conclusion is unrealistic and unsatisfying, but there is a little excitement, tension (of the non-sexual kind), and action in the second half of the book. I have some serious issues with the Joe Boy/Ewing development in this novel, particularly because of some glaring inconsistencies with earlier works. For those of you who read Red Rain, you may remember Joe Boy as the special forces friend who bails out Luther (albeitly by mail) and who is one of the subjects of the photograph which is Luther's only valued possession. I certainly won't give away details, but I was fairly nonplussed with this novel over that relationship.

This is another formulaic, hack imitation of a good thriller novel complete with cardboard Ken and Barbie dolls substituting for real characters. Since it was so formulaic, I found the coyness of the author's pseudonym extremely irritating; understandable but irritating. Mr. Crow is billed as being a prize-winning novelist on the dust cover, and having made that claim I can see why another reviewer has decided that the author is contemptuous of the audience. He is billed as being so capable, yet he delivers a product that is very average. Ergo irritating, but understandable why he doesn't want his own name on it. If he is such a literate writer why can't he take a little time for character development? I'm sure I'd be a little more forgiving in my remarks if it wasn't for that dust cover blurb which comes pretty close to false advertising in my mind.

I'd highly recommend Lee Child's Jack Reacher series or James Lee Burke's books over this outing, if you in the mood for a good thriller. These authors have won a prize or two themselves, put their real names on their work, know how to develop characters, and make you feel like you have more than gotten what you paid for when you ran out to get their latest book.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Could be better., August 22, 2005

By 

Ann Thornhill "AET" (South Carolina, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: No Way Back (Hardcover)

Interesting characters, but hard to get involved with them or the plot at times. The training section is too long, and the plot is confusing rather than intricate. As the Booklist review says, disappointing entry in what remains, nevertheless, a promising series. Interested in seeing how Luther gets out of where the ending puts him. Not quite up to Kyle Mills' (Michael Crow)normal standards.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't believe everything you read, December 1, 2005

By 

Larry Scantlebury (Ypsilanti, MI United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: No Way Back (Hardcover)

You guys are so far off base. This is a great novel. It's all about the emotional carnage of war. Hey. Have you had any really funny conversations with Uncle Earnie about his tour in Vietnam in MAG-36 in 1970? Or how about that next door neighbor Carl whatsisname who spent a lively 13 months as a FAC in Danang Province around Khe Sahn in 1969 after the war went south?

So Luther Ewing is goofy. Welcome to the canteen. Tennyson wrote about the casualties in WWI "When they ask you why they died tell them because their fathers lied." Well, Luther didn't die but he feels like he should have. I dug the conversations with Nadya and Allison and Mr. Kim. I thought Crow's vision of the CIA was what other authors have described and both credible and belivable.

Ewing of course is the Baltimore (Homicide: Life on the Street) narc who gets sat down for 6 months and is then approached by the CIA to be a bodyguard on a trip from Carmel to Korea to Russia back to Korea. I thought the training session(s) were a cross between La Femme Nikita and Rocky and no, I didn't think they were too long. Just right.

Ewing has to battle (a) his ghosts (b) his paranoia (c) the deception of his handlers and (d) the planned mission which he knows will be no cakewalk and is likely to be a set up. It's an accurate description that Lee Child's Jack Reacher is more likable and you might think that Jack would be more pleasant to hang around with but they're both stone cold killers. Acually, I think Luther's more interesting.

I thought the ending was fascinating and haunting and especially how and where Luther ends up and with what. Nadya. Brrrrr. 5 stars. Bring on more Luther Ewing.