JASON HALF : writer
  • Home
  • Full-length Plays
    • The Community Play
    • Kate and Comet
    • Sundial
    • Tulip Brothers
  • Short Plays
    • Among the Oats
    • Holly and Mr. Ivy
    • Locked Room Misery
  • Screenplays
    • The Ballad of Faith Divine
    • My Advice
    • Finders
  • Fiction
  • Blog

Book Review: CRONUS (1984) by William L. DeAndrea

8/18/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
One of my fondest reading-related memories is connected to my early teenage summer days spent in a rusty-framed hammock whose fabric smelled faintly of mildew, reclining and reading mysteries in the overgrown yard of my grandparents' cottage beside a Wisconsin lake. The book I remember best from that time and place is William DeAndrea's 1987 spy story Azrael; although plot details have evaporated long ago, I recall enjoying the dangerous action and the often gruesome demises in store for some of the characters. I also know the exact edition of the book, because I still have it 30 years later: a Detective Book Club three-in-one anthology, sharing its covers with Tony Hillerman's Skinwalkers and a Golden Age Mystery reprint called St. Peter's Finger, written by someone named Gladys Mitchell. Years later, I would create a tribute website for The Great Gladys and catalog and review all 66 titles in her Mrs. Bradley mystery series.

I was interested in returning to DeAndrea, an American author who wrote in a variety of styles and genres, as I wanted to see what I would make of his books when viewed from an adult perspective. I chose Cronus, the first in his mythologically named Cold War series of five titles, featuring Clifford Driscoll, a reluctant American secret agent who changes his identity and rises phoenix-like with each new story. There's a lot to like in DeAndrea's tale, which emphasizes entertainment and excitement over weightier thematic or political statements.

Driscoll is pressed into service despite trying to stay off the radar of The Congressman, a politician who oversees an independent counterterrorist group working in the shadows of the U.S. government. The never-surnamed Congressman has raised Driscoll specially to fulfill his destiny as a skilled and lethal agent, which Driscoll resents, along with the fact that the steely older man is also his father. Feeling like a pawn in a game he doesn't want to play, Driscoll nevertheless assembles a small specialist team to help him defeat a Russian criminal named Leo Calvin, who has kidnapped the daughter of a rich industrialist in an attempt to stop production of a new missile system contracted by the Pentagon.

While rescuing Elizabeth Fane and breaking up Calvin's cell is the immediate goal, Driscoll is really driven by the larger objective to uncover a plot that uses the codename Cronus. The Fane kidnapping is one aspect of it, but intercepted messages show that there are many more wheels at work in a larger machine. Research into Greek mythology (in this section DeAndrea warmly acknowledges the writing of Isaac Asimov) tells us that Cronus was a god associated with time – in fact, the Russian plot seems to have been started decades before – and the concept of a father devouring his offspring to keep himself safe. But how do these ideas factor into the bloody events occurring in Draper, Pennsylvania?

With Cronus, William DeAndrea energetically populates his large canvas with colorful characters and explosive moments and events. True to the genre, he can't quite escape the trap that his hero is less charismatic, interesting, and specific than the villains and ambitious achievers he shares the page with. It's never a liability – there are more than enough quirks and foibles in the supporting cast to go around – but it also comes from providing a protagonist who wants to stay a cipher, with no attachments or emotions toward others, lest it creates an exploitable weakness that the enemy could use against him. What I found more distracting is the author's choice to allow multi-character point-of-view within the same scene. It occurs only occasionally, but it's jarring nonetheless. For example, the reader will experience a moment from Driscoll's perspective, but then partway through we leap into fellow agent Miles (no last name)'s head to learn his seasoned view of Driscoll and the situation. Even in the climactic moment, we briefly switch to a villain's perspective, yet not doing that would arguably make the moment more powerful and uniform.

Still, the pacing is good, especially in the second half when the many characters and their backstories have been set up and the plotline can now play itself out. I quite appreciated that the author did not provide comforting assurance of a world where justice is guaranteed to prevail; there are sympathetic characters here who don't make it alive and intact to the final page, and that's worth admiring. When the reveal arrives and the reader learns the details of the Cronus Project, it's a scheme that doesn't really bear close scrutiny (too many variables for one, not least of which being potential defection of agents) but it is dramatic and intriguing, an idea that might have been born from a drink-fueled pitch session between Tennessee Williams and Robert Ludlum.
And the demises – of which there are several – don't disappoint in their gruesomeness, if that's of interest, whether at the reading age of thirteen or forty. The most distinctly drawn bad guy is a mentally deficient giant whose traumatic childhood has linked the sight of blood with sexual excitement, and who wants nothing more than to see blood spill from a living person, not out of cruelty but to witness an orgasmically beautiful sight. DeAndrea gives him a finely rendered third-person portrait, one of several supporting characters whom we learn about intimately. For some, the details could have easily been spared since including them actually slows down the story, as with a long-distance truck driver named Cary Wilkis, who is battling alcoholism and a pill dependency. He's sympathetic all right, but he and his backstory are hardly needed to propel the plot.

Cronus is a good read, and one worth revisiting after all these years. The hammock is long gone and the summer cottage has changed owners, but the book would still be a great choice for a lazy weekend of literary escapism. One just needs to forget, of course, that the Russians are now our benign friends with no more plans to infiltrate the United States and sow chaos, according to our current President and the political party that supports him. So breathe easy, America.

0 Comments

    BLOG

    Lots of book reviews and discussion of classic and contemporary mystery fiction. I welcome comments and continuing conversation.

    Subscribe below to receive updates!

    Subscribe

    Categories

    All
    19th Century Novels
    Andrew Garve
    Anne Morice
    Anthologies
    Anthony Boucher
    Appalachian Authors
    Bill James
    Book Review
    Catherine Dilts
    C. Daly King
    Craig Rice
    David Goodis
    E.C.R. Lorac / Carol Carnac
    Erle Stanley Gardner
    E.R. Punshon
    Freeman Wills Crofts
    French Authors
    George Bellairs
    George Milner
    Gladys Mitchell
    Golden Age Mystery
    Gregory McDonald
    Hardboiled Detectives
    Helen McCloy
    Henry Wade
    Herbert Adams
    Hugh Austin
    James Corbett
    J. Jefferson Farjeon
    John Bude
    John Rhode/Miles Burton
    Leo Bruce
    Maj Sjowall / Per Wahloo
    Margery Allingham
    Martin Edwards
    Michael Gilbert
    Michael Innes
    Mignon G. Eberhart
    Milward Kennedy
    Mitchell Mystery Reading Group
    New Fiction
    New Mystery
    Nicholas Blake
    Nicolas Freeling
    Noir
    Philip MacDonald
    Play Review
    Q. Patrick / Patrick Quentin
    Rex Stout
    Richard Hull
    Ross MacDonald
    Russian Authors
    Science Fiction
    Vernon Loder
    Vladimir Nabokov
    William L. DeAndrea
    Winifred Blazey
    Writing

    Mystery Fiction Sites
    -- all recommended ! --
    Ahsweetmysteryblog
    Beneath the Stains of Time
    Bitter Tea and Mystery
    Catherine Dilts - author
    Countdown John's Christie Journal
    Classic Mysteries
    Clothes in Books
    ​A Crime is Afoot
    Crossexaminingcrime
    Gladys Mitchell Tribute
    Grandest Game in the World
    In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel
    The Invisible Event
    Martin Edwards' Crime Writing Blog
    Mysteries Ahoy!
    Noirish
    The Passing Tramp
    Past Offences
    Pretty Sinister Books
    Tipping My Fedora
    Witness to the Crime
    

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    November 2015
    October 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015

    RSS Feed

Unless otherwise stated, all text content on this site is
​copyright Jason Half, 2023.