David Trevellyan – The New Action Hero
British Spy Doesn't Walk Through Walls, He Blows Them Up
Oct 25, 2009
Andrew Grant’s thriller Even begins with Trevellyan walking by a Manhattan alley one night, glancing down it and spotting a dead body. Then a police car screeches up. Trevellyan learns that the police have a witness who saw Trevellyan kill the man by shooting him six times. Trevellyan is locked in a police station cell overnight with an enormous and unhappy psychopath. The psycho is the first, but not the last, character that Trevellyan subdues with casual but highly effective violence.
Two-fisted spy
Trevellyan expects the British embassy will free him from his New York entanglement, but for some reason his bosses in British intelligence won’t pull the necessary strings. So the British navy lieutenant commander is shanghaied by the FBI, helping agents investigate the death of the man in the alley, an undercover FBI agent. His murder turns out to be one of a series of killings of homeless men that lead to an billion-dollar conspiracy. Along the way he engages a criminal mastermind, a woman with an inventive and horrifying way of torturing men who disappoint her, as well as various federal agents and thugs armed with guns, drugs, explosives and other weapons.
Trevellyan is a fascinating character, but Even is not a character study. We don’t know how Trevellyan went into the espionage business, what he’s done during his career, and why or even whether his bosses are unhappy with him. Each chapter of Even does begin with a vignette describing his childhood or his training, but these pieces do more to highlight his professional attributes than to illuminate his personality. No attempt is made to flesh out or provide a backstory for any of the federal agents, criminals, .journalists--not even Trevellyan's female friend at the British Embassy. The settings for the action--a seedy police station house, near-abandoned offices for the FBI and an upscale house in Connecticut, among others--are described better than the characters.
Espionage and thrills
What Even does provide, and provides a lot of, is violence and action. Trevellyan fights a lot of people and escapes from a lot of sticky situations. Even hurtles forward like a freight train. It is difficult to put down.
Andrew Grant is the younger brother of Lee Child, the bestselling author who created the Jack Reacher action series, and he has made joint appearances with Child in promoting Even. The book is billed as the first David Trevellyan novel, and we look forward to his return.
Even: Minotaur Books (May 12, 2009)
- ISBN-10: 0312540264
- ISBN-13: 978-0312540265
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