The Specialists - Lawrence Block

“The colonel was right. You had to draw a line through mankind, a wavy line but a line, and on one side you had Good and on the other side you had Evil. There was good and bad in everyone, sure, and every shitheel was some mother’s son, and it was all well and good to know this, but when push came to shove, it was just words; there was Good and Evil with no shades of gray and Judgment Day came seven time a week.”

Meet the Specialists, five good men, Manso and Murdock and Simmons and Giordano and Dehn. They scattered when they took off their green berets and returned to civilian life, but now and then their colonel picks up the phone and gets in touch—and they get together to do as they did in Vietnam.

Colonel Roger Elliott Cross left a leg in Vietnam. His men came home physically intact, but each bears scars nonetheless. But when they come together, teamed up to right wrongs, they are a powerful force for good.

And,by doing good, they also manage to do well. Because when five specialists take on a Mafia-owned bank, why shouldn’t they turn profit on the deal?

If you saw The A-Team on television, this may seem familiar to you. When Lawrence Block saw the A-Team, it seems uncannily familiar to him, and he had the feeling the show’s producers had read his 1968 novel. But he decided, wisely or not, that life is too short for litigation. Now, years later, the TV show has vanished and the book lives on. Isn’t that as it should be?