From: fi@grebyn.com (Fiona Webster)
Subject: a fun thriller: Ridley Pearson's _Hard_Fall_
Organization: Grebyn Timesharing
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 18:54:05 GMT

Now that the SubGenius and I have congratulated ourselves :-)
on how clever we are to leave all our books lying about half-
finished, I have a report to make on a book I not only finished,
but read with dispatch.  I haven't read Ridley Pearson's _Probable_
_Cause_--perhaps because it sounded too much like one of those
dull forensic novels--but having enjoyed his serial-killer-thriller
_Undercurrents_, and desperately in need of some brain candy, I
picked up _Hard_Fall_.  (Oddly enough, in view of how fast 'n' fun
to read it is, this paperback comes with its own bookmark--a
perforated addition to the back cover.)

The expression "hard fall" is apparently an FBI code phrase for
an airplane crash, and that's what this one is about: one maverick
terrorist out to crash some planes for twisted personal-plus-
environmental (I know: 'sounds weird) reasons, and a clever FBI
agent (who also has a personal agenda--the motivations here are
nothing if not overdetermined) who's out to catch him.  Classic
cat-and-mouse, in other words.  Each of these two men is lonely
and vulnerable and wounded from past traumas, and they're enough
alike that they even get attracted to the same woman, which makes
for some interesting plot complications.  The terrorist's character
is especially intriguing: his transformation from family man
to killer is not only well-detailed (unusual for this sort of novel),
but believable.  Best of all, though, is the way the imminent disaster
hanging over the book--which of course, one man is trying to bring about,
and one man is trying to avert--is cunningly hidden just outside the
reader's view.  I suppose if I'd stopped and really thought about it,
I could have figured out the plan, but the novel moves along briskly
enough that I was more than happy to be swept along in ignorance.

For those who are spooked by books with technical info about planes
or other large metallic beasts (a la Tom Clancy's godawful tomes), don't
worry: this book is largely characters, sex, and action, with just enough
insider detail to be entertaining.  Its only drawback, for me, is a rather
rushed and improbable ending in which everything that has been so care-
fully developed moves into a sudden, breathless, predictably lockstep
finale--where everything is happening at the last second! like when
Wesley saves the Enterprise!--well anyway, you know the kind of finale
I mean.

On the subject of current themes for thrillers, is anyone else finding
it strange that so many have to do with radical environmentalists?
_Hard_Fall_ features a German group ("Der Grund") devoting to stamping
out toxic chemicals and chemical warfare.  I notice in the recent _NYT_
_Book_Review_ two other thrillers of this ilk: Clare Francis' _The_
_Killing_Winds_ features a "moody rock star" and a "dedicated environ-
mentalist...up against a multinational chemical corporation that will
do anything to protect its business"; and Ken Goddard's _Prey_ has a 
"secret office in the Washington bureaucracy dedicated to the overthrow
of all environmental groups."  Surely even with the demise of the
hoary spy-vs.-spy Cold War novel, there are more plausible versions of
bad guys afoot than rabid environmentalists or rabid anti-environ-
mentalists.  

What do I know, though?  Maybe this is what the public finds "topical."

						     --Fiona Webster
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