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Title: A dud from Deighton!?
Review: A clumsy story by one of my favorite authors. Pitchers, quarterbacks, and point guards all lose their extraordinary skills, or at least have bad days, so why not writers? Any "Rockford Files" script gives us a better exasperated L.A. anti-hero than this Mickey Murphy stereotype. The minor characters in _Violent Ward_ are almost as cartoonish. (And what's with the title? It's pretty bad when the blurb has to try to explain it.)Deighton's over-detailed descriptions of clothing remind me of a Nancy Drew novel. But the worst part of reading _Ward_ is the feeling I get that this is a British writer pretending he's a lifelong American. Britishisms such as "rang off" instead of hung up and "ramp" instead of driveway reinforce this irritating dent to the story's credibility.Other critics ask, Well, what's a spy novelist to do now that the Cold War is over? Hello-oh. . . China, Iraq, Japanese industrial espionage? I'll ring off now.
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