THE BITE: A Luther Ewing Thriller

In the third sentence of this intense, electrifying thriller, Baltimore County Police Department detective Luther Ewing is shot in the parking lot of his apartment building. But the wound isn't fatal, and Ewing is soon back at work, looking for crystal meth labs in the backwoods of Baltimore County with the help of his partner "Ice Box" Cutrone and DEA agent Francesca Russo—a smart, ambitious woman who insinuates herself into Ewing's investigation. The novel has the ring of authenticity; the pseudonymous Crow knows a lot about the dangerously ruthless denizens of the illicit drug industry and has an encyclopedic command of street slang. And while many of the characters are purely stock (complete with the appealing quirks and snappily banal dialogue of any big-budget movie), Ewing and Russo are compelling figures, bursting with energy, conflict and contradiction. This is Ewing's second outing (after Red Rain); some of his backstory (he is half black and half Vietnamese, and was a Special Ops soldier and a mercenary before joining the police force) is embedded rather clumsily in the new book. But Crow is a fine writer and a skilled plotter. The suspense is terrific, the violence graphically and convincingly rendered, and the main story line is always smart and credible. The subplots work less well, particularly the romance between Ewing and his college-age girlfriend, Helen. It's the exhilarating action that makes this novel a pleasure to read; a movie version is easy to envision, with Samuel L. Jackson the perfect actor to play Ewing if he could somehow pull off the half-Vietnamese part. (June 23)