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"Exciting crime thriller"

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

Reviewed by PNR Group Member
Posted April 10, 2002

Meet Luther Ewing. With his mother's Vietnamese cheekbones and long dark hair and his black marine father's copper skin, he passes for Comanche-war paint and all-when he's in the mood for trouble. He's been a Gulf War Special Forces soldier and a mercenary in Bosnia. Now he's just two years into working with the good guys of the Baltimore County Police Department, where only three people-his partner Ice Box, his pal on the city police department, and Annie in the sex crimes unit-understand him and why he carries a jazzed-up .50-caliber Desert Eagle.

All's well for Luther at the stationhouse until he and Ice Box prepare to battle the Russian mob. As the identity of the ringleader comes to light, Luther's shady past comes back to haunt him. When the body count soars, only he-back in war paint-can bring down the ruthless criminals. Readers left breathless by the novels of George P. Pelecanos and Dennis Lehane will breathe deep again with Red Rain-with its relentless pace and gut-real characters and the new, pistol-crack voice of a master stylist.