“The Last Refuge” is Ben Coes’ third novel starring the character Dewey Andreas, after Coup D’ Etat, and “Power Down.” It belongs to one of my favorite genres, the political “real world” thriller. I get a real kick out of reading intelligent people sitting at a table, having an intelligent conversation about some urgent “we need to act now” situation. People like Tom Clancy, John Le Carre and Robert Ludlum are masters of this style of writing and have been copied many times.
I had two basic problems with “The Last Refuge”, one on a personal level and one on a visceral level. As I’ve already mentioned, the formula for this genre has become somewhat clichéd and thus it is impossible to read this book without automatically comparing to Ludlum’s and Clancy’s work. I tried really hard, but the similarities are just too striking: an international crisis, various groups of men in suits playing Greek choir and sitting at a table comment and giving exposition, and most importantly, the hero with special skills who just wants to be left in peace but is dragged into a situation. And this is probably my biggest problem with this novel. Dewey Andreas is just not that interesting of a hero. He simply goes through the motions of a million other protagonists in this genre: wants to live a peaceful life, isn’t allowed to, has to rescue and /or avenge someone. He doesn’t have the intelligence and wit of Jack Ryan and he doesn’t have the physicality of Jason Bourne. Now, it may not be fair to make these comparisons, but I really feel that that was what Coes was going for and simply doesn’t distinguish himself enough.
My second problem is that Coes wears his politics on his sleeve a bit too much. And while I don’t begrudge him for his viewpoints, for which he is perfectly entitled to as much as Grisham is entitled to liberalism, Coes’ characters suffer. Americans come across as militant righteous jerks, and Iranians as stereotypical “possible” bad guys who shouldn’t get a single benefit of a doubt. All of this is very clearly stated in the novel. Does all this take away from Coes’ capabilities as a writer? Not at all and I’m sure a lot of people won’t be bothered by any of this, I guess it’s just a case of personal preference.
It wouldn’t be fair to deny that this novel has some things going for it. Coes has a very good sense of pacing and individual situations are tense and exciting. It is a consistently readable novel, at times very much so. And as much as I disliked Andreas, some of the supporting players, representatives of agencies are very sharp and have good dialogue.
“The Last Refuge” will work best for newbies in this genre. It is a serviceable introduction to this kind of writing but more experienced fans will have a problem not comparing with what came before. Coes is a promising talent, he just needs to work on giving us more of his own unique voice and toning down on his politics affecting his characters.