It seems like every time I finish an Andrew Klavan book, I’m impressed anew with how easily he can drag me into a story. I like predicting things. I like working things out. After reading his first series: the Homelanders, I thought I’d done that. Well, I thought, undoubtedly, that was great suspense, but he works with a formula. Handsome, strong, Christian patriot dude fights people that don’t agree with him and Gets The Girl.
When I got Klavan’s next book, Crazy Dangerous, I settled myself in for some highbrow criticism. Ah ha! I said. Here’s a cleancut American Christian dude—this is the same thing. But it wasn’t. If Charlie West was Jet Li, Sam Hopkins was Barney Fife. He had no super cool blackbelt skills, and his obstacles were given a quite different flavor. The suspense was nail-bitingly good. But there was a beautiful secondary character who classified as The Girl, and was there to be Got. Phew. I had predicted one thing. Obviously, there was a formula somewhere.
