“Soft Target,” in bookstores Dec 6th, manages to be more than just not bad; it’s a modern Western on amphetamines; it’s Tom Clancy if Clancy were a better weaver of the old fashioned good vs. evil yarn; it’s… well, it’s Stephen Hunter all the way. Semper fi and all that.

Those who are familiar with the author will understand, and those who are not–well, what are you doing reading a book review by me when there is writing out there carved by a master?

“Soft Target” is the new Hunter thriller that takes place in a thriller writer’s fantasy land: America, the Mall. Appropriately, it combines the two things America loves the most: shopping and violence. Those two ingredients are enough to carry the novel through a harsh and very quick 254 pages. You will not want to put this one down.

Ray Cruz is Hunter’s new John Wayne. He’s retired USMC and just wants to leave the Mall of America with his beautiful fiancée, Molly Chan. Only problem is some jihadists have a very different idea and decide to take the mall and the thousands of innocent shoppers hostage on the busiest shopping day of the year: Black Friday.

Cruz, noble and honorable and flawed as he is, decides to take the mall back when there is little action being taken outside by Colonel Douglas Obobo. Hunter sets up the contrast between the two perfectly. Cruz is the conservative man of action, while Obobo is the liberal believer in mankind, the man who believes in words above all else. Other characters flourish as well in the novel, which, despite being short, fleshes out the action from every perspective imaginable. We follow Cruz, we follow the Imam leading the ordeal, we follow Colonel Obobo, newscaster Nikkie Swagger, FBI sniper McElroy, and many others. The novel fleshes out so many characters and tells the story in such a thorough way that Tarantino would be jealous.

As always, Hunter’s greatest gift is his style, his prose. He’s been called the “populist Faulkner” and for good reason. He’s no Vince Flynn and he’s no Tom Clancy. His characters inhabit a harsh world that is unforgiving and follows no set code of good wins over evil. His characters inhabit a place called reality where Hunter’s simple yet delicate and violent prose comes alive. His heroes are not perfect and his villains are never black and white.

In fact, Hunter is famous for going where no other writer will go. He enters the grey. He tells the densely complicated stories other thriller writers shy away from. He throws his noble yet heroic characters into the world of grey and forces them to deem what is black and white, good and evil, and we sit back and enjoy.

Hunter’s novels also appeal because of their visual style, and this one is no different. He manages to keep the pace fast and the narrative swift without sacrificing clarity, because he knows exactly what we want. He feeds us the exact images and verbs our inner beasts need to gobble up in order to be completely consumed by the story. Hunter has perfected the craft of the thriller by keeping his prose simple a la Hemingway and giving us the details other writers shy away from, all while providing these in the context of a visually striking world only a man who reviewed films for decades could give us.

“Soft Target” will pull you in fast and hard and will not let go until the very last utterance has been spoken. Ray Cruz is our new hero, our new John Wayne, and watching him navigate through a world of liberal spinners, evil jihadists, political guinea pigs and bureaucracy at its finest is more than entertaining. It’s thrilling, and that’s due to the epic prose of Hunter. There’s no other thriller writer like him today. Hell, there’s no other writer like him today. He passes the Clancys, the Flynns, the Thors like they were all standing still. And considering how far ahead his novels seems to be in all most every capacity, they must be.

The olive- skinned man with the Afro at the back of the room glanced around nervously. Whoever it was, he had found what he was looking for, and it was Dewey. Dewey recognized that. He saw it in the hatred, in the way the man’s eyes darted about constantly, settling back on him every few moments. Dewey knew when someone had come to kill him.

The killer was young, early twenties. He wore an orange polo shirt with the collar stuck up. He’d marked Dewey, a minute ago, five minutes ago, half an hour ago. He stared, unaware that Dewey could see him in the mirror behind the bar.

Dewey reached behind him and felt the .45 caliber handgun tucked into the small of his back, beneath the windbreaker. He stood up.

Dewey looked quickly at Talbot, who was deep in conversation with the Frenchwoman. He turned and pushed quickly through swarms of people to the door. There, in the glass of the door, he caught a glimpse of the bright orange shirt. The killer was following. Dewey had surprised the killer with his abrupt move.

He stepped outside onto the crowded sidewalk. It was still hot and he felt sweat pouring from his chest, wetting his shirt. He needed to move fast now. He jogged one block, then went left. He moved away from the strip, down empty sidewalks, past small houses. He jogged past car after parked car, beneath the glow of streetlights.

Looking at windshields as he moved, Dewey searched for a reflection, a sign the young killer was following behind. In the driver’s side window of a pickup truck, he caught a glimpse of the orange shirt. The killer, trying to keep up, was running too fast.

Almost sprinting now, Dewey turned the corner. He reached into the small of his back, pulled out the Colt M1911. From his front pocket he grabbed the silencer and screwed it into the Colt’s nozzle. Sweat rained down from his head and chest as he sprinted for his life. In a block, he took a hard right down another street. He crossed the street, then ducked behind a sedan and watched. The killer, following Dewey’s turn, appeared and looked around. His left arm moved up to his face. Dewey heard his panicked voice, words barked into a cell phone.

How many are there?

Dewey took off again, picking up his pace, looking in front of him for others, running as fast as he could down the sidewalk.

Dewey waited, gun cocked. The killer with the orange shirt appeared, running into the road, then down the middle of it toward him. Dewey waited another second, then two, watching the killer come toward him, oblivious to the fact that he was waiting for him in front of the van, hidden behind the back bumper of a pickup.

Dewey steadied his arm, then squeezed the Colt’s trigger, firing a silenced bullet across half a block into the killer’s chest, knocking him backward. The body dropped into the middle of the street. A pool of blood quickly spread onto the black tar as the terrorist was killed.

Dewey turned. He looked around again for others as he listened for the other killer, the one at the rear of the van.

Dewey crouched and waited. He heard the terrorist begin to move along the passenger side of the van. Dewey remained in a crouch, close to the blacktop. He ducked and looked beneath the van. He saw the silhouette of two legs stepping slowly toward the front of the van.

Dewey lunged, grabbing the killer’s weapon just as bullets started to fly from the machine gun’s silencer. Dewey felt the heat of the gun barrel, but held on. A shower of slugs struck a windshield across the street, shattering it. Dewey pulled back sharply and ripped the weapon from the killer’s arms. The hail of bullets ceased as Dewey threw the machine gun to the blacktop. The startled terrorist was frozen in place for a second, then reached for Dewey’s neck. He slammed his knee into Dewey’s abdomen. His fists struck wildly. A fist hit Dewey’s mouth and Dewey tasted blood in his mouth. The killer hit him again, a sharp punch to Dewey’s chest, the blow absorbed by a wall of muscles.

Dewey turned, his back to the killer for just an instant, then wheeled his left foot in a vicious round house kick to the Arab’s stomach. The breaking ribs cracked the quiet air. The terrorist was knocked back a few steps, moaning, clutching his chest. Dewey followed the kick with a fierce swing to the Arab’s face, crushing the killer’s nose, blood exploding out everywhere. Another strike, this time Dewey’s left fi st to now- cracked ribs. The terrorist fell backward onto the sidewalk, and reached inside his pocket, pulling out a cell phone. Dewey reached down and tore the cell from the man’s grip before he could say something. Frisking him, he found a handgun in the killer’s ankle holster and removed it. Incapacitated, the Arab grunted from the pain. He writhed in pain, as blood poured like water from his lips and mouth down his chin. In the pale glow of a distant lamppost, the terrorist’s black, bloodshot eyes looked up at Dewey, helpless.

Dewey reached into the man’s mouth, feeling the molars until one loosened. He tore the fake tooth from the mouth and looked at it quickly. The cyanide pill was the size of a pinhead.

The terrorist was silent.

“Talk and I’ll let you eat the cyanide,” said Dewey. “Don’t talk and I’ll tie you up. The police will find you. You’ll be at Guantánamo in a day or two. They’ll torture more information out of you than you ever thought you knew. Aswan Fortuna will exterminate your family by the end of the week out of revenge.”

Excerpted from Coup D’État by Ben Coes. Copyright 2011 by Ben Coes. Excerpted with permission of St Martin’s Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

I wrote “COUP D’ÉTAT ” to take the reader into the cockpit of an actual coup – to see the planning, the tight kill team operation, the bloodshed, required to make a coup work.  I focused on Pakistan because it is all too likely that the U.S. will soon be faced with having to do just that – remove a future Pakistani president in the middle of the night, before he drags us and our allies into a broader conflict.

Some facts to think about:

First, Pakistan and India, our close ally, have fought three wars since 1947.  All three wars occurred before the two countries had nuclear weapons.  Both countries now possess hundreds of nuclear weapons, enough to wipe each other out many times over. 

Second, Pakistan is 97% Muslim.  It is a question of when – not if – Pakistan elects a radical Islamist in the mold of Ayatollah Khomeini as its president.

Third, China sits at the northern border of both countries, is strategically aligned with Pakistan and covets India’s natural resources.

When “COUP D’ÉTAT” begins, Pakistan is a year into the presidency of a radical Islamist.  A war sparks between Pakistan and India, which Pakistan quickly escalates into a nuclear confrontation.  With India on the brink of unleashing a response that threatens to involve China and the U.S. in a theater nuclear war, the U.S. intervenes in the only option left:  by designing and executing a “COUP D’ÉTAT”  in Pakistan and removing the Islamist before he engulfs the region, and the world, in a war whose outcome could make our current engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan seem like child’s play in comparison.

—–

RASHTRAPATI BHAVAN

NEW DELHI

All heads in the Security Room room turned to Jessica. She looked around the table, met Calibrisi’s surprised eyes for a brief moment, then President Allaire’s, and finally settled on President Ghandra’s.

“Go on, Jessica,” said President Ghandra.

“Coup d’état,” Jessica said.

She waited a moment and let the words sink in. Then she continued. “We design and execute the removal of Omar El- Khayab. America handles it. We remove the cancer. We install someone who will work with India. In the meantime India maintains its war stance. You keep your planes in the air. You fortify the northern border with China by moving troops to the area. You prosecute the war front in Kargil and Baltistan.”

She paused and leaned forward. The room was silent.

Finally, Indra Singh shook his head.

“Oh, sure, that should be easy,” Singh scoffed, waving his hand in the air. “We never thought of that. Just pop off El- Khayab. Jessica, that is, how do you say it, a mission impossible. We’ve been targeting El-Khayab since before he was elected. He is better guarded than even you, President Allaire. It is simply not a viable option, and certainly not within the time parameters we have to work with.”

“How many foreign leaders has India removed from power?” asked Jessica.

Singh was silent.

“How many?” she repeated.

“The answer is, not a one,” said Calibrisi.

“The United States has removed three foreign leaders in the last twenty years,” said Jessica. “There are no guarantees, but we know how to do it.”

“It will take too much time,” said Singh. “We don’t have the time.”

Jessica stared at Singh, whose face was red with anger. She turned to President Ghandra.

“Will you give us the time?” she asked, looking into Ghandra’s eyes.

“No, that is not an option,” said Singh. “India has not—”

“Shut up, Indra,” said President Ghandra sharply. He turned to Jessica. “How much time are we talking about, Jessica?”

She looked at Harry Black, then Hector Calibrisi.

“At least two weeks,” Calibrisi said. “Three would be optimal.”

“One week,” said Jessica, turning to Ghandra. “We need a week, Mr. President.”

Ghandra glanced around the conference table. Singh was shaking his head, apoplectic. He moved down the line of his advisors and asked each one of them to give his opinion. Every member of Ghandra’s war cabinet was against delaying the nuclear strike.

“If it had even a prayer of working I might reconsider,” said Morosla, the secretary of RAW. “But it won’t work.” After polling his cabinet, Ghandra turned to Jessica. He smiled warmly at her. He seemed to have regained his composure and calmness that she so admired.

“Two days,” Ghandra said, overruling his cabinet. “You have forty-eight hours to remove Omar El- Khayab from power.” Ghandra pointed at the clock on the wall. “It’s noon. Two days from now, unless Omar El- Khayab is gone, we will begin our attack.”

“Thank you,” said Jessica. She looked at the clock, then at President Allaire. He stared back at her without expression.

“After that, we destroy Pakistan,” said Ghandra. “Unless they strike again in the interim. In which case we will destroy them not in days or hours, but in a handful of seconds.”

Jessica nodded. She said nothing. She glanced at her silver Cartier tank watch. It was exactly noon local time. She felt a tightness in her stomach as she watched the second hand on her watch move around the watch face. Forty-seven hours, fifty- nine minutes, forty seconds, and counting…

Excerpted from Coup D’État by Ben Coes. Copyright 2011 by Ben Coes. Excerpted with permission of St Martin’s Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Ed. Note: part two runs tomorrow. You can purchase the novel here.

But what if that sense of security suddenly disappears? And even worse, what if you can’t remember all the things that are important to you, and those around you are claiming they don’t know you either?

—–

That is the harrowing dilemma at the heart of the terrific new thriller “Unknown,” a film that updates classic Hitchcock thrillers like “The Man Who Knew Too Much” to the modern world but still relies on timeless foundations of solid performances, inventive writing, perfectly moody atmosphere and a reality-based sense of location that makes every moment feel all too real. And at its core is the essential idea of an Everyman who is thrust into a terrible situation and must find the inner strength and cleverness to find his way back out.

Following Dr. Martin Harris (Liam Neeson) and his wife Elizabeth (January Jones) as they go to Berlin for an important botany conference, Martin quickly finds he has to race back to the airport after forgetting a vital briefcase with classified information. He goes back so quickly that even his wife doesn’t know where he went, and when he suffers a four-day coma after a taxi accident, Martin finds that his wife claims she doesn’t know him, another man (Aidan Quinn) is claiming to be him, and that he can’t even remember what secrets he was bringing to the conference himself. He turns to his cab driver (Diane Kruger) and a former East German secret policeman to help him figure out the mystery, one that spirals ever more complexly through a series of shocking twists.

“Unknown” marks the second foray into action-hero status for Neeson after the slam-bang thriller “Taken” in 2009, and he again fits the role well. “Unknown” is an even better – if less wildly entertaining – film because its more complex story stays mostly in the realm of plausibility, and because the performances and writing of the characters across the board are three-dimensional.

Director Juame Collet-Sera does a superb job building a low-boil tension to heightened levels at key moments in the film, while he and screenwriters Oliver Butcher and Stephen Cornwell masterfully use amnesia and the stranger-in-a-strange-land motif to keep both Martin and the audience on their toes for the entire running time. Their vision of Berlin as cold, grey and utterly baffling to an American man with no knowledge of German sets the film in a netherworld that has a constant sense of dread, and their detailed side story of Kruger’s plight and hope for a better life is uncommonly affecting for a thriller.

All told, “Unknown” is a rare modern thriller that takes its time to unspool its story and keeps viewers hanging on for the ride right alongside their hero. Let it be known that this is one film well worth seeing.

—–

But aside from the vastly underrated “Cinderella Man” five years ago, Crowe has slipped off the rails a bit. He made several missteps that proved largely unappealing to the masses of moviegoers, only starting to rebound this year with the $100 million-grossing yet still disappointing “Robin Hood” (full disclosure: looking back, this is the one positive review this year that I regret givin, as the film has not held up well in memory due to its overly ponderous tone). But in his new film “The Next Three Days,” Crowe digs deep and pulls off his most appealing performance in years. Working under the always-masterful Paul Haggis (“Crash,” “Million Dollar Baby”), who fills the shoes of writer and director in this one, Crowe plays John Brennan, an English professor at a Pittsburgh community college who has a young son and an incredibly sexy and supportive wife, Laura (Elizabeth Banks).

He’s content with his lot in life, but Laura hates her boss so much that when the boss winds up murdered, she gets pegged as the prime suspect and is railroaded into a 20-plus year prison sentence. As months and then years tick by and John sees their son growing up ever more distant and alone, he is frustrated by the fact that all types of appeals have been exhausted and nothing legal will ever appear to get her out.

When Laura attempts suicide, John reaches the end of his rope and decides the time has come to break her out at all costs. Thus, he embarks on a literally quixotic quest – the film expertly draws a parallel with the moral issues inherent to the “Don Quixote” story – to research how to conduct, fund and plan the perfect prison break. And when that moment comes, Haggis’ utterly brilliant script and direction (based on the French film “Pour Elle” by Fred Cavaye and Guillaume Lemans) hooks the viewer and pulls their strings in ways both subtle and strong, resulting in an intelligent and rewarding thriller that would do Alfred Hitchcock proud.

As good as Crowe is in this film, Banks is even better. So far in her career, she always appeared to be a broad-comedy lightweight in films like “Zach and Miri” and “The 40-Year-Old Virgin.” But here she takes what could have been a thankless role as the damsel in distress and makes Laura a fully alive, three-dimensional and utterly unpredictable character who can shift her emotions on a dime. And backing her and Crowe up is a stellar cast of actors who were apparently so eager to work with Haggis that they filled in even small roles with star power – especially Liam Neeson in the small but key role of a man whose record of committing several prison breaks leads John to seek advice and inspiration from him.

The other most remarkable aspect of the film lies in the fact that it’s not a heavy-handed, pulse-pounding affair. Instead, it takes a slow, thoughtful, methodical approach to the elaborate plot that John hatches and then lets it unspool with a growing force that pays off with stunning results. Even though this is “just” a thriller, it might very well wind up as one of my ten favorite films of the year.

“The Next Three Days” opens everywhere Friday, November 19th.

With 9 reviews in and “Shutter Island” currently sits at 89% at Rotten Tomatoes. 8 positive reviews to 1 negative.

Marshall Fine dug it: ”‘Shutter Island’ is like a lunatic’s trip to Wonderland, where no one and nothing is what it appears to be. It builds suspense with only brief respites, reaching a climax that is truly shattering. 

“This is one man’s journey into madness – and Martin Scorsese is your most welcome tour guide. Hang on tight.”

—–

Then in the midst of a long break from all things creative, Gibson’s personal life fell apart with a drunk-driving arrest in which he blatantly unleashed an anti-Semitic verbal tirade and an affair which ruined his 29-year marriage and resulted in an out-of-wedlock child that largely shattered his image as one of Hollywood’s most devoutly religious members. After directing just one film since “Passion” (2006’s modest hit “Apocalypto”), Gibson decided he was finally ready to return to the big screen as a movie star again.

The question is: are audiences ready to embrace him in return? And does he still have the Midas touch for smash-hit action films? In the new film “Edge of Darkness,” Gibson returns to his benchmark persona – playing a by-the-book cop who suddenly opts to break all the rules while avenging the death of a loved one, this time his daughter.

There are a few new twists in the “Edge” playbook, as the film takes a more nuanced approach than, say, the non-stop rock-‘em, sock-‘em action of his “Lethal Weapon” series. Based on an acclaimed BBC miniseries, “Edge” applies the more stately tone of the British and even manages to feel like a classic 1970s Cold War conspiracy thriller, with Gibson’s Thomas Craven discovering layer upon layer of corruption as he seeks her killer to get his tit-for-tat revenge.

**MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD**

Craven’s daughter, 24-year-old Emma (played nicely if briefly by Bojana Novakovic) has agreed to visit him despite the fact their relationship is mostly emotionally distant. She seems like she’s hiding something, and by the time they’re about to have dinner a couple hours after he’s picked her up, Emma has a nasty nosebleed and is coughing up blood in the kitchen sink. And the moment Craven opens the door to race her to a hospital, a drive-by shooter screams “Craven!” and knocks her dead with a shotgun blast.

The goal had been to make it look like they accidentally shot her while really seeking to kill Craven, but the enraged and baffled father knows he’s a clean cop and there’s more to the story. He soon learns Emma had plenty of access to nuclear secrets in her job as a scientist with a nuclear contractor, and that she had a creepy boyfriend who’s ready to open a can of whupass on Thomas the very first time they meet.

The boyfriend alerts Thomas that a whole lot more is going on than meets the eye, and sure enough, Craven finds himself battling cops, government agents, a senator and other assorted political figures in a plot that surprisingly takes a more lefty tone regarding the evils of nukes and corporations than one might expect from the normally die-hard conservative Gibson.

“Darkness” is basically “get on with it” drama peppered with moments of intense violent shock, rather than the all-out constant tension of a Jack Bauer or Jason Bourne adventure.  However, hard core Gibson fans will be reassured to see that Mel can still propel a movie despite his eight-year acting absence and personal issues.

He convincingly takes us into the turmoil and mire of human emotion as Craven deals with the loss of a child, and he keeps our attention with a couple of witty remarks and a few good fight scenes topped off by a pretty good Bostonian accent. There are few who could have played that weathered faced angry man in a trench coat as well as Gibson with his stark subtleties and poignant facial expressions.

The plot can be convoluted at times, resulting in a couple of scenes in which bad guys get together to trade a ton of expository information. But when Gibson is the focus of a scene – thankfully, most of the time – his visceral performance, punctuated with terrific outpourings of sadness, elevates the film to a better-than-average status. As he punches, kicks, shoots, and plows cars through each level of the corrupt figures who lurk everywhere, fans of Gibson’s brand of righteous action should find enough fun to be satisfied.

1. Science Fiction/Thriller/Horror Channel

A short form/short film channel showcasing those genres. Independent producers, writers, creators could submit work to be aired. It wouldn’t have to be, nor should it be at the Sundance level of professionalism delivered on DigiBeta and starring Cameron Diaz doing a favor for the filmmaker because it’s her friend’s cousin, either.

We don’t want that. There’s plenty of that kind of venue and they turn down 99% of the stuff submitted anyway, mainly because it’s not the work of someone’s friend’s cousin. So forget that right away. It has to be underground, guerilla, shoestring and, most important, good. Very good. Damn good. But not expensive. How can you do that, you say? 

With writing.  

But just because the characters are sympathetic doesn’t mean they’re in a good movie.

Sin Nombre is at once an illuminating portrayal of anonymous people (hence the title: in English, Nameless) and a thriller marred by long stretches of un-illuminating inactivity, poutiness by the lead character as a substitute for acting, and a spectacularly clichéd climax. The fact that the picture is in a language other than English elicits in some American critics the same reaction that British accents bring out in American audiences: This doesn’t sound like what I hear every day, so it must be important.

It’s not that it’s a terrible movie. It’s not at all–it’s pretty good in fact, for what it is. But there are better thrillers out there with superior dialogue and deeper characters that never get the kind of acclaim that Sin Nombre enjoys. I believe it is being praised more for the sympathetic and PC nature of its characters and story than for the artistic or entertainment value of the picture itself.

Sin Nombre may be a filmmakers’ attempt to influence the immigration debate in the U.S., but that’s not apparent from the movie, which is a straightforward story about people in dire straits. That their situation is an element in a larger political debate is never mentioned. This lack of a direct appeal makes it a more effective plea for sympathy for illegal immigrants, and perhaps that was the filmmakers’ intent.

But again, the implications of the story are just that, assumptions that viewers may make (which is a whole lot of the reason people make and see movies in the first place). Moreover, the problems that the would-be immigrants face are almost entirely the doing of South and Central Americans governments, not Washington, DC. Compared to the other obstacles the characters face in getting to America, getting across the U.S. border is quite literally a trivial matter.

There is quality filmmaking here, at times top-shelf, but even top-shelf is still off-the-shelf. Sin Nombre is as well-directed as anything else in the sub-genre of the real-world thriller, but that’s a mighty narrow niche, and the occasionally inspired visual or intense moment does not make up for the pedestrian feel of the rest of it—pedestrian in the sense that we’ve felt this kind of tension in a movie many times before, and we know reflexively where it’s going.