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Title: Smoker by Greg Rucka ISBN: 0-553-57829-4 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 September, 1999 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $6.99

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Average Customer Rating: 4.21 (14 reviews)

Rating: 4
Summary: A well developed protagonist makes this series a success
Comment: I've read Rucka's first three novels (Keeper, Finder, Smoker)after reading some of his comic book work. What astounds me about the Atticus Kodiak novels (so far) is there consistency. Atticus is a living breathing person, made more so by his imperfections. I agree with an earlier reviewer that I was screaming "Idiot" as much as I was cheering him on. In this way Rucka's books are like Owen Parry's Abel Jones series, as both featuring people who are as close to reality a fictional character can get. You have your disagreements with them, and yet you know at the end of the day you like and respect them, and would be proud to call them friend.

Returning to "Smoker", I don't think this is my favorite of the series, but it is still an excellent book. Atticus Kodiak finds himself guarding a key witness against the tobacco industry. While Rucka does make his view of this debate known, it isn't the primary focus of the novel. Wisely, Rucka focuses on Kodiak's battle with a master assassin, who hangs over the proceedings like a grim fog; Kodiak knows the assassin is there, but doesn't know what that person has in store.

While the ending is a little weak, the overall novel is a definite success of tension, suspense, and human conflict, from the battle between killer and protector, on to the mundane interactions of people in their daily lives. Rucka gets it right in ways that certain people in the genre have not.

Rating: 5
Summary: Great addition to this action series
Comment: ~Carter Dean needs round the clock protection because he plans to provide first hand testimony that will destroy the tobacco industry. Bodyguard Elliot Trent obtains the services of a peer, personal security specialist Atticus Kodiak to provide total security protection for the witness.

Rating: 4
Summary: Rucka comes into his own
Comment: FINDER was a strong, intelligent debut novel hampered by an ending almost Neal Stephenson-esque in its abruptness and a villain who came straight out of left field in the novel's closing pages; KEEPER was another solid piece of work, but shifted focus erratically, abandoning the compelling opening setup of Manhattan's seedy bondage scene for a mishmash of family drama and incompletely-realized international intrigue.

SMOKER is the novel where Greg Rucka's obvious talents really begin running on all cylinders, combining his strengths - an intelligent, muscular prose voice, a knack for dialogue and character development, and a laudable devotion to realism - with a tight, focused plot and an adversary every bit as fascinating as the lead characters.

The book opens with professional bodyguard Atticus Kodiak at the end of his personal and professional rope - estranged from his girlfriend by an act of monumental stupidity on his part, and persona non grata in the security industry for the bad luck that seems to follow him from job to job. He's given a last chance by one of his old contacts in the industry, but it may prove to be his undoing as he begins to suspect that he's going up against one of the world's most feared assassins.

With this book, it becomes obvious that the Kodiak novels' claim to fame is their scrupulous realism, both in the physical and emotional arenas. The characters are not supermen; they can be hurt and killed, and they fail almost as often as they succeed. With a couple of exceptions, Rucka avoids big Hollywood-style thriller setpieces; he knows that even a simple gunfight can be almost unbearably tense if the reader knows that the characters aren't invincible.

Rucka is similarly honest about his characters' emotional lives; they have flaws and inner lives that both affect and are affected by the goings-on of the plot. And he resists the temptation to smack the "reset" button at the end of each novel - the series changes and develops with each new entry, and not every problem is solved at the end of a novel, lending the Kodiak books some of the addictive appeal of serial fiction.

I started reading Rucka as a way to pass the long summer nights, but his work is too meaty to be considered mere disposable summer reading. Pick these up - you'll be glad you did.

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