Jul 27, 2007

'Last Street Novel' may be author's best

By Terri Schlichenmeyer / Book Reviewer

"The Last Street Novel" by Omar Tyree
Simon & Schuster
$24, 401 pages

To what lengths would you go to keep your word?

Even if it was illegal, dangerous or immoral, would you do everything you could to keep a promise? Or would you retreat when the going gets rough?

Shareef Crawford made a lot of promises to a lot of people, and in the new novel "The Last Street Novel" by Omar Tyree, Shareef has also broken a lot of those promises. Now will he live long enough to keep one?

Everywhere Shareef Crawford looks he sees his own face staring back at him from the sleeve of his latest novel, which seems to be in the hands of every woman around. Shareef is a mega best-selling romance author, and even though he has a wife and kids back in Florida, he is used to female fans throwing themselves at him.

So used to it in fact, that when a beautiful woman flirts with him at a book signing, Shareef takes her back to his hotel. In the morning, she has a challenge for him. She wants Shareef to meet with former Harlem drug dealer Michael Springfield "up north" at the prison where Springfield is serving a life sentence. Springfield wants his life in and out of the pen immortalized by the author's pen.

Word quickly hits the streets that Shareef's in Harlem to research his next book and that he talked to Springfield, but Springfield has enemies on the outside, and they don't want to see his story in print. Shareef's friends warn him to leave Harlem. For him, the streets are no longer safe.

But everybody knows Shareef Crawford is hardheaded, nobody's ever accused him of being weak. He made a promise to himself to write a "real" story, and he's going to do it. Besides, he's intrigued by Baby G, a flashy young street general who says he wants to protect Shareef for a piece of fame in return. Can Baby G be trusted when everyone else seems to want Shareef dead?

Author Omar Tyree never ceases to amaze me. Seriously, the guy is a literary chameleon. "The Last Street Novel" is almost nothing like Tyree's last two novels. The good news is, it's better.

From the first slam-you-in-your-chair chapter to the last few can't-turn-them-fast-enough pages, "The Last Street Novel" is gritty, sweaty and hard-hitting. Tyree populates this thriller with an abundance of figures, any one of which could be the one who is stalking his lead character. The plot twists are tight - although ever-so-slightly predictable - and the subplots give you a nice window into Shareef's character and what drives him to do what he does. This is one of those books you will have to force yourself to stick a bookmark in, because you won't want to stop reading until you get to the ending that practically begs for a sequel.