Customer Reviews

No Way Back

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I've read all three of Crow's novels about Luther Ewing. I liked Red Rain a lot. I liked The Bite, but a lot less. No Way Back probably describes Crow's predicament as well as it does Ewing's. There's no place to go with this series or this character any more. Luther started out complex and 3-dimensional, which is what made the series so promising. Now he, and all of the other characters (caricatures?), are right out of a comic book, 2-dimensional at best, and with apologies to the author, boring. The same goes for the plot. I'm with the 2-star reviewer at best. The sad part is this is a 2-star book from a 4 star writer.

For an alternative, try The Empanada Affair.

Plodding, boring and disjointed. Plot lacks credibility and unfolds at an excruciatingly slow pace.

Someone has to take the fall when the media headlines a drug bust that went bad. Baltimore brass blames maverick police officer Luther Ewing; Captain Dugal suspends him for six-months. Luther is irate that his superiors made him the patsy when it was not really his fault and wonders how to pass time for a half a year for an adrenaline junkie like him.

However, CIA bigwig Mr. Westley keeps an eye out for renegade cops in trouble for doing their job especially someone he knows first hand like he does Luther from their days in Sarajevo. Luther detests Westley, but not as much as the Baltimore Police Department brass and the torturous thought of being idle for a half year. He agrees to baby-sit in what Westley says is a walk in the park. Luther knows walking in parks can prove dangerous, but accepts the assignment to protect a South Korean businessman from being abducted or killed from those who want stop his $7.5 million deal with rogue Russian generals. Luther as Terrence Prentice, falls in love with the Russian spy Nadya and realizes that Westley has lied about the danger to him and his client.

Once the police procedural aspects are over and Mr. Westley assigns Luther to his simple protection task, the story line goes into hyperspeed and never slows down until the whole truth is revealed. Luther, Westley, and Nadya are stereotypes borrowed from the Cold War, but the audience will not care as they pull off an action-packed thriller in which fans will follow the escapades in one sitting to figure out who's who. NO WAY BACK is a tremendous thriller that espionage suspense fans will crow about the rush.

Harriet Klausner