Discuss. It takes only one word before Luther Ewing's mandatory six-month vacation from a Baltimore narc squad leaves him holed up in a D.C. spook house, prepping for a CIA mission. Nadya, a Russki vixen,is there to help him brush up on his Russian, while Eunkyong, a knock-out Korean-American is there to train him in Tae Kwon Do and give him Koreanlessons -- just enough to get by where he's going. He's got a new wardrobe full of tailored business suits and chinos, a new arsenal, even a new name -- Terrence Prentice -- and a simple job description: Protect the package. The rest of the details are a bit sketchy: Guard Mr. Kim, a South Korean businessman known to be doing a little trading with the rogue North. GetKim into Vladivostok to seal a shady CIA-sponsored deal with two corrupt Russian generals, and then get him back out alive. Easy, no bang bang, just quick thinking and some smooth talk. But the devil is in the details -- and what Luther doesn't know might just get him killed.

Relentless prose and unforgettable characters punctuate the page-turning action, as Michael Crow once again delivers a novel that not only explores violence, greed, and betrayal but also plumbs the depths of the human heart.