Sleeper's Run, by Henry Mosquera, has some excellent things going on. It also has a fatal flaw. Mosquera does a first-rate job of researching and bringing to life the many disparate settings and characters that make up this novel. Moving from military culture to cyber crime, from Wall Street trading to emergency medical responders, Mosquera has clearly done his homework. Everything from life-saving techniques to advanced killing methods get a thorough treatment here. There are also convincing changes of culture, language and setting that come across as very well done.
The problem is the main character, Eric Caine. We first meet him as a drunk, depressed semi-bum, but soon find he has a history as an elite military member, a computer genius, a skilled EMT, a physical fitness prodigy, a weapons expert, and fluency in many languages. All these remarkable attributes, of course, become significant plot devices, bringing our hero into globe-trotting adventures that require all his skills to survive and outwit bad guys from every direction.
So, there's the flaw. The action is too improbable, the escapes too incredible, Caine's skills too fantastic, the results too unbelievable. It feels like Mosquera tried to put every possible fighting and weapon skill, every computer hacking technique, every globe-spanning language and cultural device into one book, when there's probably enough material here for two or three. After the third or fourth time Caine beats up four assailants, or hacks state-of-the art security systems, or eludes some paramilitary gang, it starts to feel like an old-time movie serial - "escaping from the vat of boiling oil, our hero finds himself tied to the track in the path of a speeding locomotive..."
Toned down a little closer to reality, even the un-real reality of a popular thriller, Sleeper's Run would have been a little more digestible. The prose is fluid, dialog is good, plotting is good (although over-the-top) and the novel has all the makings of a good thriller. It's just too much.
