Book Review: Red Rain

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Red Rain    
Michael Crow
Class/Genre:   Mystery
Series: Luther Ewing
Viking, May 2002, $25.95, 286 pp.

There is nobody like Luther Ewing AKA Five-Oh on the Baltimore County Police Department. He’s a narcotics detective whose heritage of a black father and a Vietnamese mother makes him look like the suspects he busts. He served in the Army’s Special Forces in the Gulf War. After he left the service, the CIA hired him to work as a mercenary in Bosnia.

He saw and did a lot of things that changed him and he came home wearing a metal plate in his head and has to take medication so he won’t go into seizures. He thinks the past is behind him but when pure heroine starts showing up on the streets and a Russian gun is killing cops, he knows his old friend Vasilly is in town.. Vasilly is a former Soviet Special Forces soldier who served with him in Bosnia. Five-oh knows that the Russian must be taken out but he also believes he must go outside the law to do it.

This is Michael Crow’s first crime thriller and it is simply sensational. The protagonist is an anti-hero who believes justice and the law are not always compatible and is not afraid of being a maverick to make sure the scales tip towards justice. RED RAIN starts out at supersonic speed and just keeps moving faster towards the shocking finale.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner