The Fifth Profession (1990) by David Morrel
A Thrilling Glimpse into a World of Elite Protection, Marred by Ideological Blind Spots
Readers unfamiliar with The Fifth Profession may wish to read these notes only after reading the novel.
David Morrell, master craftsman of the thriller genre, delivers a potent blend of action, horror, and intrigue in his 1990 novel, The Fifth Profession.
The action begins in the rarefied world of professional protectors, men trained in the "fifth profession" – a step beyond bodyguard, confidante, and strategist.
Protagonist Savage embodies professionalism and lethal skill. Protectee Rachel Stone, widow of an assassinated US politician, is now a prisoner of her second husband, a powerful Greek tycoon.
Morrell's authorial strength lies in his unmatched skill at verisimilitude and his ability to create vividly realized conflict settings. The showdowns and set-pieces in The Fifth Profession are expertly choreographed. This is visceral and gripping storytelling.
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The Fifth Profession isn't without distracting elements. A significant shortcoming is Morrell's unquestioning acceptance of established capitalist power structures. There's an underlying assumption that the "right to rule" is a model attribute of everyday US life.
Morrell’s earlier thrillers, horror novels, and macabre short stories displayed engagement with issues of class and power in a more forthright and critical fashion than this.
Below the level of cat and mouse melodrama,The Fifth Profession is readable as an early example of anti-Japanese political sentiment harnessed to popular fiction. Published in 1990, the novel foreshadows the wave of Japan-bashing that became prominent in the early 1990s, exemplified on fiction best seller lists by Michael Crichton's Rising Sun.
Expressed anxieties in The Fifth Profession about Japanese economic power and motion toward world financial domination reflect then-prevailing Wall Street and yellow press concerns. This element underscores the importance of grasping the historical and political context in which the novel was written: the moment at which US imperialism lost the Cold war.
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In conclusion, The Fifth Profession is a thrilling and well-crafted novel that showcases David Morrell's undeniable skill in marshalling action, suspense, and healthy doses of the horrific and the uncanny.
It's essential to approach this novel – like all thrillers – with a critical eye. As we acknowledge its ideological axis and bourgeois engagement with historical events and political anxieties, we see these evolve out of the fertile ground of crisis-ridden US imperialism.
Mapping these political coordinates, Morrell is also efficient in keeping up surveillance on the important things:
Canopied by leaves, tickled by ferns, Savage inhaled the mulch’s loamy fragrance and drew his Beretta. Rachel’s breasts heaved, sweat trickling off her forehead, her eyes wide with apprehension. He motioned for her not to speak. She nodded rapidly, emphatically. Ready with the pistol, he stared down the slope, the woods so thick he couldn’t see the path.
Morrell is never lost in his own funhouse.
Jay
16 April 2025
