Review: Once Dead
<p><cite>Once Dead</cite> (Richard Phillips; Amazon Publishing) is a passable airport thriller with some SF elements.</p>
<p>Jack Gregory should have died in that alley in Calcutta.  Assigned by the CIA to kill the renegade reponsible for his brother&#8217;s death, he was nearly succeeding &#8211; until local knifemen take a hand.  Bleeding, stabbed and near death, he is offered a choice: die, or become host to Ananchu &#8211; an extradimensional being who has ridden the limbic systems of history&#8217;s greatest slayers.</p>
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<p>It&#8217;s a grim bargain. Ananchu will give him certain abilities, notably the ability to sense life at a distance and read the intentions of his enemies.  But the cost is a near-uncontrollable addiction to danger and death. Gregory will literally be in constant struggle with an inner demon &#8211; and when the human who dragged his body from the alley is found insane, mumbling of the return of Jack the Ripper, a dark legend is reborn.</p>
<p>Airport-thriller action ensues as Gregory, believed dead by the CIA, goes freelance but is drawn into opposing a plot to cripple the U.S. with an EMP attack.  There are lots of bullets, big explosions, a heavy from the Russian Mafia, treachery from rogues inside the CIA, torture scenes, exotic international locations, some sex, weapon porn, and a climactic Special-Ops-style assault on Baikonur. There&#8217;s not much surprising here, and the SF elements tend to recede into the background as the plot develops.  There are clear indication that the author intends a series.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s not brilliant or terribly original, but it&#8217;s competently done. The author is a former Army Ranger; the gunplay, hand-to-hand fighting, and combat ops are written as by someone who has seen how it&#8217;s done right, if not done it himself.  Read it on an airplane.</p>
