A Different War

In "A Different War", Craig Thomas returns his grizzled and unlikely hero Mitchell Gant for what looks to be his swan-song. Last seen saving the west from a conspiracy of Soviet Generals on the verge of launching laser-weapons into orbit (in the epic 1987 novel "Winter Hawk"), Gant is shown leading a less-spectacular existence as an aviation accident investigator. (There are references to special Iraq missions Gant flew - this story appeared in '97, well after "Desert Storm".) When a prototype airliner crashes under mysterious circumstances (well, not that mysterious, it looks like poor design work), the plane's builder asks Gant to investigate. As the plane's manufacturer is also his ex-father in-law, Gant only begrudgingly accepts the invitation. Gant's vindication of the airplane only reveals a much larger and potent conspiracy, one involving a British tycoon with his own troubled airliner project. Meanwhile, the niece of Kenneth Aubrey (Thomas's perennial spy-chief hero) picks up threads of the same conspiracy on her end of the Atlantic. This was a pretty good book, and it's always a treat to read Thomas's trademark-prose, with their finely-tuned sense of urgency. It does suffer in comparison to "Winter Hawk" and of course the "Firefox" books, and we soon get the idea that the story will boil down into a chase for the conspiracy's designated agent-of-destruction. The story as a whole lacks the urgency of earlier stories, and Thomas's use of technology as a dues ex machine - while not uncommon in his books - isn't balanced by the compelling story or characters of his other books. Still, a great read and fun for Thomas fans who may despair ever seeing another novel. (War was published a decade ago; the next novel, "Slipping into Shadow" appeared three years later, and appears to be the last of his novels.)

Mitchel Gant, the harried but heroic aviator of Craig Thomas' cold war techno-thrillers "Firefox" "Firefox Down!" and "Winterhawk" is back. While Gant, like the technothriller genre, seem out-of-place in the 1990's, author Craig Thomas knows well enough not to try stretching outdated ideas. Where once he faced sinister Russians and high-tech fighter planes, Gant is now on the run from Aero UK, a consortium of evil MBA's who succeed by literally crashing the competition. No longer with the CIA, Gant now investigates crashes for the FAA, poring over the ruins of airliners nowhere near as exotic as the Firefox. While investigating the crash of an Aero UK competitor, Gant is pulled into a web of corporate deceit not unlike the power-plays of the cold war, and easily as deadly. With billions at stake, Aero UK will stop at nothing to prevent Gant from revealing its role in the saboutage. Though corporations replace the KGB and the Vance 494 airliner seems a far cry from the MiG-31, Thomas pulls it off, producing a gripping novel, with his trademark prose, terse and fast paced lines written as if the author was in the middle of Tae Bo. Thomas' detailing of Gant's first flight in the Vance jet conveys the gravity and fluidity of flight in ways no author-pilot has been willing or able to approach. Still, "War" is not quite up to the earlier Thomas epics. Its fast pace only highlights how slim a book it is and Thomas doesn't give "War" the wide scope of say "Winterhawk". There is no superweapon slowly bearing down on millions, no seemingly unreachable border, nothing to really convey tension. And there isn't enough of Gant. The nominal hero, Gant is only one of several players, one whom Thomas seems almost reluctant to bring out. "A Different War" is only one of Thomas' latest attempts to say goodbye to the kinds of books he wrote in the 1980's. I just wish he wasn't so eager to do so.