Surly Bonds
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MWSA Review
The men and women who want to fly are a special breed. According to author Michael Byars Lewis, himself a pilot, you will “experience the highest highs and the lowest lows of your life” (36). In his book, Surly Bonds, Lewis takes us through the elaborate mix of education, verbal quizzes, airplane checks outside and inside, first flights, grading, precise maneuvers in the air, landing, and grading. We follow a small number of young men as they make their way through the process, anxious at every turn. Jason, Vince, and Lenny deal with money and girl problems while trying to concentrate on their ultimate goal: to fly.
Millions of miles away, a Russian leader meets his colleagues with a bold plan to brush democracy out of the country. The worry is that a revolution might draw the United States into action, although both nations have downsized their arsenals, their ships, their aircraft. So the Russian leader proposes a diversion to be carried out by Section 9, a secret collection of moles that have infiltrated the U.S. waiting to be called upon for action.
In one month, a known assassin from Russia evades all surveillance to meet up with an activated mole who thinks he will be a Russian hero if he can carry out his orders. They have a plan, the assassin lays the trap, and they wait for the right person to arrive in San Antonio. In this same month, our three student pilots are mixed up in gambling, hacking into a mainframe to get all the tests students will take, and dreaming about young women.
By the end of this same month, some will be dead, some will be captured, some will escape, some will be reconciled, some will become pilots, and the plan conceived by the Russians to distract the U.S. is a success although not in the way planned.
This book is filled with details about the process of becoming a pilot. From Dash One (the T-37 flight manual) to calling for taxi clearance to an out-of-control spin, Lewis creates a believable world that will soon intersect the Russian world since one of the moles is a student-pilot. Lewis is equally as precise when one of the Russians attempts to escape certain death. He takes us down the dirty streets full of vendors selling anything for cash, especially dollars. And when the action centers on San Antonio where the distraction is to take place, Lewis makes us feel the city, the Riverwalk, and the tiny Alamo.
The time he takes to describe these locations, the events that take place in these locations, and who is assembled there keeps us from realizing that he never mentions a week, a month, two weeks later, next month, the next day—all the cues we are used to. So the action is timeless. The believability is the scenery, the flavor of a bar (26-32) near the air force base in Enid, Oklahoma, the look of dirty peddlers in Moscow (179-181, 184-186), the tables along the Riverwalk in San Antonio (266).
Even when Lewis has to call for the OSI and CIA, the operatives slide right into the game of the cold war. There are the usual car chases (alas Q has not put his gadgets in these cars). Nor are the young women in the book James Bond’s Tiffanys, Dominos, and Honeys although Lewis’ women appear to be sexual objects; one young woman is in flight-training, but she barely exists. This book has the violence you expect in a thriller: gun fights, hand-to-hand, one against three, snipers, murder; it has the good vs. evil; and surprises about friends, enemies, betrayal, spies, and truth.
Surly Bonds is a good read. And Lewis plays fair. The clues for the good and the bad are there, so the ending of the book is earned. It may still be a surprise, but the evidence is there.
Reviewed by: Margaret Brown (2013)