The Last Raven

Most of Thomas' best works involve cold war themes and settings. However, in 'Raven' Thomas breaks the mold that worked so well for him for over a decade and came up with a believable and terrifying scenario in which the American CIA and elements w/in it are in league with the enemy. This book grabbed me early on as Patrick Hyde, who begins the book on the edge, witnesses the shooting down of an airliner in the remote regions of eastern Russia. He soon realizes that it was the plane of the Russian President's wife, who had been on a mission to gain support from Afghanistan to bring peace to that region. Hyde's group is wiped out and framed for the crime by the enemy and he quickly realizes that the leader of this group isn't who you would normally think. Working against Hyde is that the British had thought him dead, now they want to sweep the incident under the rug, so not only is he on the run from the CIA, but also British agents as well. Always just 1 step ahead of his pursuers, it quickly becomes obvious that Hyde's mission to get to the bottom of the story will be much harder than he originally thought. Eventually he teams up w/ Kenneth Aubrey's niece, who has run into the American side of this plot, when her boyfriend, who had been investigating a plane crash in California stumbles on to something and ends up on the run himself. Throughout many locations in California, Hyde and Kathryn Aubrey remain on the run avoiding the CIA and local law enforcement, all who think they are doing the right thing by capturing them. Whether it be in rundown jazz clubs, upscale London clubs, gutter neighborhoods of Sausallito or final confrontation on the shores of Lake Shasta, Craig Thomas does a magnifacent job of painting a vivid description of the surroundings and weaves together a complex plot pretty well. I didn't give this book 5 stars b/c the Russian end of the story doesn't fit well. I don't know if the book was written w/ the intent of having a sequel, but as a stand alone book, Thomas did a poor job of tying in the smuggling story. Also, I felt the story really slowed down for about 50-75 pgs. about 2/3 of the way through when the conspiracy was being unraveled. I thought overall it was kind of hard to keep track of everything at 1 point. However, the way the book pulls you in early, and the amazing climax as the book winds down, this book definetely gets a solid rating from me and a recommendation to anyone looking for action/adventure or a spy thriller.

Patrick Hyde makes his come-back after Craig left him out of the two previous novels. All the Grey Cats ended with Hyde missing and presumed dead in Afghanistan. After the events of The Bear's Tears, where Hyde got quite a bit of experience in Afghanistan, he's put on loan to the US in the region. Though it's not long before he runs into some trouble. He witnesses Russians shoot down an airliner in Tajikistan. Among the KGB and Red Army present, he also sees a CIA agent he knows, and quickly finds himself on the run. As for the plane that got shot down, the wife of the Soviet premier, who's trying to get democracy to Russia, was on board. Seems the hard-liners don't want things to change and will go to great lengths to keep things the same. On the other side of the world, Kenneth Aubrey's niece is living in the San Francisco area and gets a frantic call from a friend. He turns up dead, and she ends up on the run aswell. Kenneth Aubrey desperately wants to help Hyde, but finds he also needs to help his niece. Are the two incidents connected perhaps? Also, there's a South Afraican named Paulus Malan, who knows Aubrey's neice and is tied up with this somehow. Phil Cass, who helped out Hyde in The Bear's Tears, shows up to help Hyde out again at one point, and Hyde's girlfriend Ros is also around. Dmitri Priabin, of the Mitchell Gant novels, seems to be in some sort of deal with Paulus Malan. There are times where some of the sub-plots can be confussing, and the continuing ones will get even more confussing with A Hooded Crow, the next Craig novel. But all in all, this is still a pretty good Craig book.