Into the Fire

The Last Exchange by Charles Martin is his latest novel. 

Every now and then a reader needs to reconnect with a favorite author and go in that direction after immersing him/herself in another genre. At least I do. I need to remind myself why this author is a favorite, to embrace the character development – unique and otherwise – the acute moments of keen perception expressed perfectly. Truly good writing. And in that writing, sometimes the storyline doesn't really matter.

Sometimes readers forget that "there's nothing new under the sun" according to Solomon. Every topic has been covered by novelists past, present, and future. It's the way the story is communicated that often sets it apart and defines for readers why an author becomes one of their favorites.  

The Last Exchange is a story of how a former Spec Ops Scotsman meets a famous actress with the unusual history and name (Maybe Joe Sue) and her actor husband (Syd) onset and is hired by the actress to be her personal bodyguard. What he observes and learns about her and her husband will dictate how his life goes. While he maintains the space set by his definition of what his job entails, "Joe" and he ("Pockets") become friends of a kind where Pockets establishes the way he must conduct himself and refuses to veer from his job description. As the years progress, he's motivated to learn all he can in order to give his best to protecting her – mostly from her drug-addicted self. When he discovers what her no-count husband has done, Pockets' actions have punishing consequences. A letter she'd penned to him during the five years he'd been her bodyguard and what he'd learned she'd done with a young woman who she befriended and introduced to her lifestyle, causes a major act of upheaval in his, hers, and the young friend's lives. 

There are a few moments in the story which might bring to mind the film The Bodyguard starring Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner, but only because of the stoic conduct of Pockets. 

The novel is written with the Before/After titles to chapters to give the history, the after-actions, the present-day occurrences and then more of the Before/After chapters. Toward the very end after the climactic revelations, the novel ends in the present time. There are multiple surprises revealed in the final chapters, perhaps not "surprises" to the readers but to the characters. 

Charles Martin has done his usual masterful job of creating characters that reach out to the reader for understanding, to point to pictures of their hearts or their ugly lack of decency, to make their marks – good or bad. There is always something original in Martin's work, something that makes his novels unique and meaningful. The Last Exchange is no different. 

Father, you know the great gifting you've given to Charles. May he continue to write the stories you have just for him to tell. Bless him, his writing, his family. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.