Author: Ed Hudson

The true story that Ed Hudson shares in  As the Crow Flies: The Redemption of an International Drug Smuggler is inherently cinematic. Drug smuggling, airplane acrobatics, luck and chance, mystery and humor, irony and fate, love and deliverance… it’s all there. So it came as no surprise (at least for a reviewer with slightly more than a passing interest in film) that there are a couple of movie references in the book and plenty of places where additional motion picture references that aren’t there can easily pop into one’s mind.

For me, “No Country for Old Men” found its way into my head more than once, even though there is no character in the book remotely as sinister as the evil protagonist of that Academy Award-winning film. Perhaps it was just the underlying sense of doom in Hudson’s book that that brought about that comparison.

Hudson is a dedicated, experienced and, it certainly appears, highly principled, conscientious and pious law-enforcement officer who had personal dealings with the main character, Freddie Crow. He actually appears in the book, in the third person, late in the narrative. While in no way egregious, this particular literary style makes one question why the author didn’t just write the entire book from his own perspective as an interested party and eventual participant, instead of writing about himself as if he were a completely different person. It could have been an even more powerful piece of literature that way.   

Yet, the book is powerful on its own merits, primarily for two reasons. First, for a self-published book (apparently from a first-time author), it is competently written, and when an almost-too-unbelievable-to-be-true real-life tale is competently written, far more than half the battle is won instantaneously. Secondly, Freddie’s story should be shared with anyone who agrees that our better angels sometimes make themselves known after the lesser ones make their mark. 

It’s a relatively quick, easily absorbed if not always easily processed read. Which is not to say that there wasn’t room for improvement. Criticism after the fact (the book has, after all, been published already) is good for other authors, or this one’s next effort—not so much for readers depending on a book review to help them decide whether or not to engage with it. But since it has already been established that this is a worthwhile read, perhaps the criticisms can serve to further acquaint potential readers. In other words, maybe by getting these minor criticisms out of the way, even the most serious, discerning book lover will more easily pass them over. (And then they can wait for the improved follow-up effort!)

So in no particular order, the book’s three most common issues are the anticlimactic nature of some of its revelations about the main character’s motives and activities; its understating of various key turning points in Freddie Crow’s life; and its prosaic prose. All three add up to one hard truth: “As the Crow Flies,” as formidable and valuable as it is, could have been a far more commanding book with some top-notch editorial modifications. Too many transformative moments in Freddie’s life are discussed in the same tone, pitch and literary style as everything else. For a story that has more than its share of ups and downs and highs and lows, the prose here simply seems to be on an even keel. It feels too uneventful, even though the story is anything but. And when you throw in some language that, while not grammatically incorrect, is simply uninspiring and sometimes a tad sloppy (from a strict literary point of view), it merely points to the fact that of all the experts from various fields who were involved in this project in one way or another, full-time editorial professionals must not have been among them.

But in the end, that matters for the next book only—not this one. This one is interesting, logical, vital and absorbing enough to be on the bookshelf of anyone who wants to see what flying under the radar is really like when your fantasies and your mind are somewhere over the rainbow.