**Floating this review again since it was nominated for an Edgar Award for best novel.**
At this point, I feel like meeting S.A. Cosby at the 2019 Bouc**Floating this review again since it was nominated for an Edgar Award for best novel.**
At this point, I feel like meeting S.A. Cosby at the 2019 Bouchercon was the crime fiction fan equivalent of seeing the Beatles at The Cavern Club in Liverpool. This guy is just that good, and it seems like the whole world is realizing it right about now.
Ike Randolph is a black man who runs a successful landscaping company. Buddy Lee is a white guy who can’t pay the rent on his crappy trailer. Despite being completely different on the surface, the two men do have some things in common. They’re both ex-cons with a history of violence, their sons were married to each other, and neither man could really deal with their kid being gay. When the couple are violently murdered, neither Ike nor Buddy knows how to process their grief nor deal with their failure to accept who their sons were. When you are men like Ike and Buddy there’s only one obvious way to deal with their feelings – Team up and go on a bloody revenge rampage.
This seems like a straightforward plot about violent men seeking justice for their loved ones, and as someone who thinks John Wick is great cinema, I’m always up for that kind of story. However, there is a lot more than that going on here with issues like race and homophobia in the forefront. Ike and Buddy aren’t just dealing with external threats like a biker gang, they’re also deeply wounded internally as they try to cope with how they each treated their son for being gay. Ike is even more of a powder keg than Buddy, and as a black man there’s an irony in how he has both been treated badly just for being who he is while he couldn’t help but treat his own son terribly at times. Now he’s filled with regret and shame, yet he still has a hard time accepting that his boy was gay.
While the book is also filled with violent characters doing violent things, this isn’t a fist-pumping Hell-Yeah! kind of fun where you are encouraged to cheer on the punishment being doled out. There’s a real sense here that no matter how seemingly righteous the reason, there’s always a price to pay for inflicting harm on others. Also, no matter how careful you are there are always unintended consequences for this kind of behavior that can boomerang on you viciously, and that’s exactly what happens to Ike and Buddy.
Cosby reminds me of writers like Joe Lansdale and Johnny Shaw in the way that he can do a rural crime story and mix violence, humor, heart, and some deeper themes in the story. While the comparison to writers like those is easy, Cosby has his own unique point of view and the talent to make it clear, and that’s why he’s a great fresh voice in crime fiction.
Alan Grofield is laying in a hotel bed in Mexico City trying to recover from a gunshot wound in the back with a suitcase full of stolen money in the cAlan Grofield is laying in a hotel bed in Mexico City trying to recover from a gunshot wound in the back with a suitcase full of stolen money in the closet when a strange woman looking to escape some thugs comes into his room though the window.
We’ve all been there, right?
This is a series spun off of Richard Stark’s (a/k/a Donald Westlake’s) better known Parker novels about a professional thief. Grofield started out as a supporting player in those books, and the story of how he ended up in in that Mexican hotel room is part of a Parker novel. While the two characters are both criminals written by the same man, they don’t have much in common. Whereas Parker is a humorless pro who is all about getting the job done, Grofield’s career as a criminal is a side gig while he pursues his true calling, acting. As such, while Grofield is smart and has some devious moves, he’s also more funny and whimsical, and he has a tendency to fantasize that the actions he’s taking are part of a movie.
The novel follows the structure of most Parker ones. We get the set-up and spend time with the lead character, but then there’s a shift so that we get the bad guys’ point of view. In this case that involves a plot involving a wealthy politician who is making a power play. That’s where the book slowed down for me. I was into the first part with Grofield and his new female friend on the run, but the machinations of the politician weren’t a lot of fun. A bit too close to reality these days for my taste.
Grofield himself falls into a kind of odd category for Stark/Westlake thief characters. The Parker series were hard boiled and gritty crime stories while the Dortmunder books were comic capers about a luckless sad-sack of a criminal. Grofield is somewhere in between the two with some darker violent things happening, but at the same time his cheerful demeanor and witticisms make this far lighter than Parker.
It’s a fun read, but Grofield definitely comes in third behind Parker and Dortmunder for me so far. ...more
I received a free advance copy of this from NetGalley for review.
You know how some cars have a handhold mounted above the doors on the interior, and yI received a free advance copy of this from NetGalley for review.
You know how some cars have a handhold mounted above the doors on the interior, and you hear people call them the “Oh-Shit-Handle” because if you’re a passenger and something crazy happens you might find yourself clutching it while screaming expletives?
This book should come with an Oh-Shit-Handle because it’s that kind of ride.
Beauregard “Bug” Montage was a professional criminal whose planning skills were second only to his driving abilities. However, he left that life behind to be a husband and father, and he started his own automotive repair shop in rural Virginia. Unfortunately, business has gotten slow, and the bills are piling up. That’s when an old associate who burned Bug on a previous heist shows up with the promise of an easy score. Feeling that he has no other options, Bug decides to do the job even though he has grave concerns about who he’ll be working with.
What could possibly go wrong?
I wrote about how S.A. Cosby came to my attention at the 2019 Bouchercon in my review of his first book, My Darkest Prayer, and with his second book he continues to deliver.
The idea of a former criminal trying to go straight who takes one last job has certainly been done before in crime fiction. Cosby hits all the familiar beats with the planning, the heist, the twist, all the other elements you’d see in a Richard Stark novel, and he does them well. As just a crime novel this makes for a helluva page turner.
Where the book hits the next gear (Get it?) is in the character work done with Bug, and it’s all about the relationships. First, there’s the daddy issues with Bug being haunted by his unresolved feelings for his father, a criminal who vanished at a critical moment in Bug’s youth. Then there’s the hateful dying mother he feels obligated to support. Finally, there’s the wife and kids he dearly loves and is trying to make a brighter future for.
Like many a character in a crime fiction like this, Bug claims he’s doing it all for his loved ones, but there’s a part of him that also loves the outlaw life. It also fits his violent tendencies better than being a family man, and one of the key things that Cosby digs into here is the notion of a person split between two conflicting lifestyles that are fundamentally opposed. In the end the book is really about Bug coming to terms with who he really is, who he wants to be, and what kind of damage he’s already done to the people he loves.
In addition to all this, the writing just absolutely cooks. There’s great action, gritty violence, humor, heartbreaking moments, and while reading there were some driving sequences where I found myself pressing my foot on the floor as if I could stomp the brake to slow the car down. I grew up in a rural area, and I may have broken a few speed limits on country roads in my youth so Cosby’s descriptions of what that rush is like really hit home for me,
It’s a fantastic follow up to his first novel, and it makes me more sure than ever that Cosby is a writer to watch....more
I received a free copy of this from the author for review.
This is a great book, but also a fairly tough read.
That’s not because there’s a graphic accoI received a free copy of this from the author for review.
This is a great book, but also a fairly tough read.
That’s not because there’s a graphic account of a shocking crime in the opening chapter although anyone who picks this up should be aware that they are in for one dark ride. And it’s certainly not because of the writing because this is Lawrence Block we’re talking about it, and that guy could make a lawnmower maintenance manual a page turner.
What makes it uncomfortable is that it asks some tough questions. Like does committing one terrible crime make a person evil even if they go on to be an upstanding citizen for the rest of their life? I suspect that a lot of people would be inclined to chalk it up to youth or one bad decision made in the heat of the moment.
The wrinkle here is that the first person narrator isn’t holding back, and we know exactly just how much he enjoyed the act as well as how he continues to fantasize about it for years afterwards. There’s no guilt, nor any empathy for the victim. In fact, it seems like the main reason he doesn’t do it again is that he feels like he was lucky to get away with it once so deliberately holds himself in check.
However, it isn’t exactly as black and white on the part of the main character, and the tricky thing that Block pulls off here is putting us in this guy’s head for an entire book so that you understand him. I’m not saying that you sympathize with him. That’s nigh on impossible after that first chapter. Yet, you do get a feel for how he’s just one of those people who has a head full of bad wiring, and there’s something to be said for his self-awareness that makes no excuses or rationalizations. While he originally drifts onto the path that becomes his new life as an average Joe, he also deliberately makes choices to make that happen and is careful to avoid putting himself in a position where he may not be able to help doing it again.
So again, while we’re dealing with a monster, he knows he’s a monster, and he’s not giving in to his worst impulses. Does it matter that his reasons for behaving himself are still driven by self-interest?
If you ask that question then you also need to consider how many seemingly decent people only obey the rules out of fear of getting caught. The narrator discusses many other crimes he sees in the news, and one that catches his attention is the story of a man who killed a woman years ago and went on to live a seemingly normal life and never did it again. So it makes you wonder just how many people you see walking around your neighborhood who may have left a body in a shallow grave in the woods.
Block also makes good use of some recent resolutions of real cold cases to add in a feeling that the curtain is coming down on the main character after decades of getting away with it. His thoughts and plans about what he might do if he feels like he’s finally caught are bone chilling and go in a surprising direction that add more uneasiness about what so-called average people might do in similar circumstances.
The only quibble I have with the book is that I’m not entirely sure that the timeline holds up if you start thinking about the age of the narrator and other characters in relation to him at certain points, but that’s minor nitpicking in an otherwise fascinating book.
Again, this might not be for all crime fiction fans because there are parts that are tough sledding. It might not even be for all Lawrence Block fans. He seems to be very aware of that, and he posted an interesting account of how he came to write and publish this one. It certainly shocked me at the start, and then surprised me even more with different direction the book takes after that. In the end it’s a meditation on dark impulses and trying to live with them that is going to haunt me for a good long while.
Some people have already noted that this is one of Block’s best books, and you can add me to that list....more
Bookstore owner/professional burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr returns home from a successful night of stealing on to find his best friend Carolyn in a desperBookstore owner/professional burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr returns home from a successful night of stealing on to find his best friend Carolyn in a desperate state in his apartment. Someone has taken Carolyn’s pet cat from her apartment and is now demanding a ridiculous amount of money to return the feline. It quickly becomes clear that the catnapper was trying to get Bernie to pull a job by going through Carolyn, but stealing a Mondrian painting from a museum is a bit much for a humble burglar. However, Bernie has the bright idea to steal another Mondrian from an apartment he was just in. What could possibly go wrong?
There’s all the usual things to like in this series with witty conversations and clever schemes to break into places. However, the plot gets incredibly complex and even after Bernie has laid it all out at the end I’m not sure I fully understand what happened which feels like too much in a book that features a kidnapped cat. It also seems like a cheat that a lot of the explanation brings in characters we haven’t even seen in the novel until that point.
Still, it’s Lawrence Block doing his thing with Bernie and Carolyn so there’s a lot to like. Block fans will also probably notice that this involves art, stamp collecting, and jogging which are all subjects he’s interested in that have come up in other books. ...more
Lee Scarborough is a former football star who has been failing as a salesman. When he meets a woman by chance he gets embroiled in a scheme to recoverLee Scarborough is a former football star who has been failing as a salesman. When he meets a woman by chance he gets embroiled in a scheme to recover $120,000 of stolen money.
Guess how that goes?
This is a tasty slice of pulp fiction that has a unique hook and provides plenty of twists and turns. The book doesn’t end anywhere near where you think it will based on the early chapters, and there’s plenty of paranoia fueling the plot by the end of it. I hadn’t read any of Charles Williams’ work before this, but now I’d like to check out more. ...more
Rachel O’Neil has had a rough time after a divorce and surviving a battle with cancer, but things are looking up wiFleetwood Mac warned us about this.
Rachel O’Neil has had a rough time after a divorce and surviving a battle with cancer, but things are looking up with being in remission and a new teaching job. The promise of this next phase of her life is instantly shattered when she receives a phone call telling her that her young daughter Kylie has been kidnapped, and that Rachel is now the newest link in The Chain.
Not only does Rachel have to quickly come up with a cash ransom to save Kylie, but she also has to identify and kidnap another kid, just like the people who have Kylie did. When Rachel pays up and snatches the next victim, the kidnappers of Kylie will have their child released. Then once Rachel has gotten the parents of the kid she’s taken to kidnap another child, Kylie will be released. And so on and so on.
Rachel quickly learns that the people running The Chain have come up with a fiendishly clever and self-sustaining process. If you try to go to the police, even after the return of your own child, you’d be confessing to kidnapping. Plus, they warn that once a member of The Chain you’re never really free of it, and they may call upon you to do some other horrible task for them or risk you and your family being killed.
Essentially normal law-abiding people are turned into instant criminals. Rachel quickly realizes that appealing to the decency or humanity of the people holding Kylie is pointless once she realizes just how far she’s willing to go herself.
I’d been hearing a lot about this one even before it released thanks to authors like Don Winslow singing its praises, but I was a little leery. The whole parent with a child in peril thing has been tired for me even before Liam Neeson murdered most of Europe to protect his precious baby girl. However, I do recognize that it keeps coming up as a theme because it’s universal and effective when done well.
And it is done very well here. At least for the first two-thirds of the book. I was less happy with the origin story of those behind The Chain, and the ultimate resolution seems just a little too convenient. There’s also one plot turn that I found very hard to buy into, and irritated me even more because it seems like there was a better way to do it sitting right there. That’s what takes this from a 4 star thriller to a very satisfied 3 stars. (I’d go 3 and a half, but….you know. Thanks, Goodreads.)
Despite my disappointment with the last act I still gotta say that it has incredible momentum for the first half. It starts with a great first line, and just absolutely cooks right along from there for a good long while before petering out just a bit at the end. I particularly enjoyed how quickly Rachel grasps the situation and how she jumps into the mode of acquiring cash and working on her own child kidnapping scheme. That idea of a parent being absolutely willing to inflict the same kind of fear and pain they’re going through on someone else to save their own child is what gives the book some more heft than just being an entertaining page-turner....more
I received a free advance copy from NetGalley for review.
A former Mafia hit man turned private detective hunts down a serial killer who also used to mI received a free advance copy from NetGalley for review.
A former Mafia hit man turned private detective hunts down a serial killer who also used to moonlight as a mob hit man? Man, I really wanted to love this book. Sadly, I didn’t.
Isaiah Coleridge was introduced to us in Blood Standard, and to say that his backstory is complex is an understatement. He used to make his home in Alaska where he worked as a top notch killer for the Outfit, but after he had a bloody falling out with one of the bosses Isaiah was exiled to in upstate New York. Determined to leave his old ways behind Isaiah has become a private detective, but he also doesn’t mind jobs where his skills as an enforcer might come in handy. He also has to maintain a delicate relationship with the local mobsters so when one of them comes to him with an ugly job Isaiah is in no position to refuse.
Two of the local thugs have been murdered in gruesome ways, and the boss wants to know if they’re connected and who might be behind it. Isaiah reluctantly begins to check out it out and quickly learns that a legendary hit man long thought retired or dead might be behind it. It also turns out that this guy’s hobby when not killing people for money was killing people for fun. If the mob connections weren’t bad enough it also seems like this man might have ties to the military and there’s some very rich people in the mix as well. Despite his plate being pretty full Isaiah also has taken on a gig trying to protect a local woman from a family of thugs because she's dating the ex of one of them.
Sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? And it is. Frankly, it’s too much. This was my problem with the first book, too. There’s a great idea in there with the idea of an ex-mob hit man trying to kinda go straight but getting tangled up in bloody messes. However, everything has to get so complicated that it all gets bogged down as Isaiah just pinballs from one thing to the next. The core story of an ex-hit man hunting a legendary ex-hit man is great, but the bad guy can’t just be an insane serial killer too. He also has to be wrapped up in a vast conspiracy that is pretty ridiculous so I guess mob killer/serial killer just wasn’t enough.
And that’s kind of the problem to all of it. Barron has good ideas and is a capable writer, but he just never knows when to stop adding layers to the cake and focus on shaping the elements he already has into something edible. Eventually it just collapses on itself from it's own weight. For example, the big subplot in this book is dumped to the back burner and is pretty much resolved with a couple of sentences late in the book as action that we don't see. So it was just a distraction in an already overstuffed book.
There’s the core of a really cool character and series here, but it took too much effort for me to dig it out. More bloody violence and less plot, please....more
If someone offered me the choice between taking a long road trip with a couple of kids or being murdered by the mob, I’d have to really think it over.If someone offered me the choice between taking a long road trip with a couple of kids or being murdered by the mob, I’d have to really think it over.
It’s November 1963, and Frank Guidry is living well in New Orleans thanks to his top position with Carlos Marcello’s mob outfit. However, one of Frank’s recent chores was leaving a car in a parking garage in Dallas very near the spot where President Kennedy would be assassinated just days later. It doesn’t take a genius to make the connection especially when several other people on Carlos’ payroll start turning up dead. Frank just became a loose end, and he flees west with lethal hit man Paul Barone hot on his trail.
Meanwhile, Charlotte Roy has been trying to raise her two daughters in a small Oklahoma town which isn’t easy thanks to her drunken loser of a husband. When Charlotte has enough she takes the girls and starts heading to California, but she’s consumed by guilt and uncertain if she's done the right thing. After Frank meets Charlotte at a motel he realizes that traveling with a lady and two kids would make him a lot less conspicuous so he engineers circumstances so that they all go together. Frank is surprised when what started as a con to help him get away begins to turn into a real relationship with Charlotte and the kids. But that pesky hit man is still right behind them…
I read Berney’s The Long and Faraway Gone earlier this year and enjoyed it quite a bit. Then I heard a tremendous amount of good buzz about this one before it released, and I’m pleased to report that it lives up to the hype.
In the wrong hands this concept could be just some cheesy tale about a ‘bad man’ who sees the error of his ways after becoming part of a family, but the strong character work done with Frank, Charlotte, and deadly Paul Barone is where this really shines. You thoroughly understand all of them, and despite the historical backdrop it all feels grounded and realistic with Frank and Charlotte struggling to deal with how their lives have been forever changed while Barone has to deal with a variety of setbacks as he just tries to complete his mission.
I particularly liked how Berney used the JFK assassination as the jumping off point, not the center of the story. It’s obviously the thing driving the plot, but what’s presented comes across as a believable scheme by one pissed off mobster instead of some vast shadowy tinfoil-hat conspiracy theory. So we’re not dragged into some Oliver Stone style fever dream.
The work done on the settings and time is top notch, too. We get an authentic sense of the places like New Orleans, Las Vegas, crappy motels, and roadside tourist traps. It all builds the mood of what it must have been like back then. There’s nice touches of how the mob operated at the time, too.
It’s a damn fine piece of crime fiction, and I’ll be tracking down more of Berney’s work....more
Has a college student become a masked vigilante killer because he’s been cursed by a demon or because he’s mentally ill? Maybe a little Column A and aHas a college student become a masked vigilante killer because he’s been cursed by a demon or because he’s mentally ill? Maybe a little Column A and a little Column B?
The third volume finds Dylan coping with revelations indicating that the whole demon thing might be all in his head which leads to him trying to put down the shotgun and try to get back to some kind of normal life. Which actually kinda works for a while, but it’s hard to just quit being a vigilante when you’ve got the Russian mob looking for you.
The team of Brubaker and Phillips is probably the best working in comics right now, and as always the writing and art combine to create a great story. I continue to admire how this takes the air out of the fantasy of a good-guy-with-a-gun cleaning up the streets. It’s all brutal and messy and ugly, and they manage to make Dylan sympathetic while still also seeming like a danger to himself and everyone around him. There’s a gritty realism to the way that it’s all handled that is very different then what you usually get in a story of this type.
I absolutely loved this, and I’m extremely glad I’ve got Vol. 4 on deck right now to keep reading....more
A young man who puts on a mask and kills criminals because he thinks he’s been cursed by a demon ends up in a psychiatric hospital. Who could have seeA young man who puts on a mask and kills criminals because he thinks he’s been cursed by a demon ends up in a psychiatric hospital. Who could have seen that coming?
After Dylan has a meltdown in his personal life he’s been locked up and doped enough to keep him foggy, and it also seems like someone has taken his place on the outside as a masked vigilante killer getting headlines for murder. However, Dylan is still haunted by the idea of the demon who drove his killing spree because whether it was real or not he’s got plenty of evidence that the world is steaming pile of garbage and that maybe somebody should do something. And just because he’s locked up doesn’t mean that there’s not bad guys around he could take care of….
If this was a Marvel or DC creations we’d go through an endless continuation of Dylan including revelation after revelation about his past and he’d probably die at some point and come back. With a story by Brubaker and Phillips we get an actual ending, and that’s part of what makes their stuff so great. With a conclusion we have consequences and themes, not just an infinite and increasingly pointless character.
I also admire how this story threads a tricky needle. It certainly isn’t a ridiculous Death Wish style fantasy about how one determined man with a gun can clean up the streets, but it’s also not a simplistic morality tale about how murder is wrong either. Dylan’s world view gets increasingly complex as he goes from a guy who thinks he’s killing to avoid his own death at the hands of demon to someone who is increasingly disgusted by a world that seems to get progressively worse by the minute thanks to the corruption of the basic systems that are supposed to protect us.
George Pelecanos may be working more on television than books these days, but the man still knows how to write one damn fine crime novel.
Michael HudsGeorge Pelecanos may be working more on television than books these days, but the man still knows how to write one damn fine crime novel.
Michael Hudson has been in jail awaiting trial for taking part in the robbery, but doing time has been made easier by prison librarian Anna who helped him discover a love of reading. Fortunately for Michael his case is dismissed thanks to private investigator Phil Ornazian who gets the man he robbed to drop the charges. All Michael wants to do is clean up his act and spend his time reading some good books, but the PI didn’t spring him out of the kindness of his heart. In fact, Ornazian has a side business stealing from pimps and other criminals, and now he wants Michael to start helping.
It’s been a fantastic year of crime fiction for me, and this one continues my winning streak. I’d be happy enough to get an average Pelecanos book, but I think this is one of his best, maybe my favorite, even if he’s not doing anything particularly new here.
There’s the usual stuff like all the detail of life in Washington D.C. mixed in with a bit of nostalgia about how things used to be even if the way things used to be wasn’t always great. The characters are also pure Pelecanos, who always likes to stress a strong work ethic and simple pleasures. Michael fits this template as a guy who has realized that he’s been going nowhere fast, and who now has goals and starts planning. He may be starting at square one as a dishwasher, but as long as he can kick back with a book in his spare time, he’s content.
This even applies to Ornazian who you might expect to be a sleazy jerk, but he’s written as not that bad of a guy. He’s got a family that he’s trying to provide for and only robs criminals. Anna is also interesting as a lady with a seemingly perfect marriage who finds herself more than a little intrigued by Michael when they bump into each other after he’s released.
At less than 300 pages it’s also quick and tight as a drum. It’s a great blend of character and setting with a bit of action from the rip-offs that Ornazian pulls with his partner. As a constant reader I also always love it when an author manages to get across what makes it so great, and Pelecanos really sells the idea that Michael has fallen in love with books.
I also got to meet Pelecanos at a signing for this, and he had a lot of interesting things to say including talking about the prison reading program that he’s involved with and was obviously one of the inspirations for this book....more
Should someone be put in prison for a practical joke?
Yes. All practical jokers belong in jail. Or hell.
Harry has been an unrepentant prankster his eShould someone be put in prison for a practical joke?
Yes. All practical jokers belong in jail. Or hell.
Harry has been an unrepentant prankster his entire life, but now he has been locked up after one of his jokes went wrong which resulted in several injuries. Once inside he quickly bumbles onto the secret of several other inmates. There was an opportunity during construction of a prison expansion to build a tunnel which they use to regularly leave. This isn’t for escape because none of these guys have long enough sentences to want to live on the run, but rather they just use the tunnel to go out and do the things they can’t while in jail only to return each night. Harry gets cut in on the scheme, and he enjoys the quasi-freedom it allows him. However, there’s a big catch. The inmates have realized that they have the ultimate alibi of being in prison so they've got an ambitious plan to rob two banks at once, and they demand that Harry take part in it. This puts Harry in a real bind since he may be in jail, but he’s no crook.
The late Donald Westlake was capable of doing both drama and comedy well, and as a lighthearted story written for yucks it works surprisingly well. I was worried in the early going because I really dislike practical jokers, and I thought that he’d be asking a reader to find Harry’s pranks hilarious. Instead Westlake makes it clear that this behavior is beyond annoying, but that Harry has a sick compulsion even when he knows the warden is watching him like a hawk and that his fellow inmates will murder him if they find out he's the one responsible. The humor comes from just how incapable Harry is of stopping, and the casual way we learn about the reign of terror he’s inflicting on hardened criminals. There’s a lesson for Harry in this story so that kept the book from asking me to be on the side of a guy who thinks tying someone’s shoe laces together is funny.
There’s also a running gag about Harry’s last name sounding like a vulgar term which I’m not gonna try to replicate here because I don’t have the patience to figure out how to do an umlaut. As with the practical joke angle I worried that Westlake was going for the most obvious and juvenile thing when it actually turns out to have some deeper meaning explaining Harry’s behavior.
So what we end up with is an enjoyable caper that makes for an entertaining couple of hours of fun reading.
However, I do find myself wishing that Westlake might have used this idea in one of his serious crime books he wrote as Richard Stark. If the humorless thief Parker would have run across a practical joker who screwed up his plans to rob a bank, and then got his big meaty paws around that guy’s neck and squeezed until he turned purple…. Yeah, that’d make for a pretty satisfying book, too....more
When Parker’s in the middle of killing somebody you’d think he’d be too busy to take a phone call about a potential job, but a man’s gotta eat.
The scoWhen Parker’s in the middle of killing somebody you’d think he’d be too busy to take a phone call about a potential job, but a man’s gotta eat.
The score is a bunch of valuable paintings that a rich d-bag had stolen for himself and are now hidden away in a remote hunting lodge he owns. However, security is very high due to a previous botched robbery attempt, there’s a very tight clock on when this has to get done, and one of the crew is a high-strung computer nerd fresh out of prison. Parker also needs to track down whoever sent a hit man after him so there’s no shortage of complications to this one.
This series started in the ‘60s, and I think it works best as retro old school crime stories. However, Richard Stark (a/k/a Donald Westlake) came up with some good modern variations on his usual stories when he brought Parker back in the ‘90s. Here, the rich guy made his money as part of the dot-com boom back when those guys were just wealthy assholes rather than evil billionaires bent on destroying democracy and/or the working class. Ah, the good old days….
So between that and all the Internet and communication angles to the heist you can tell that Stark was figuring out a way to make Parker still viable in the digital age. And it works. They may be using computers to help pull of this heist, but somebody still has to go in and get the stuff which also means having a tough guy who can think on his feet.
I also liked the angle to the hit man story and the brutally efficient way that Parker backtracks the guy to the people who have an old grudge against him. There’s a lot going on in this one, but Stark makes it all fit together and hum along right along to its conclusion....more
I received a free copy for review from the author.
Having a group of thieves and con men as your extended family sounds kind of cool, but you’d better I received a free copy for review from the author.
Having a group of thieves and con men as your extended family sounds kind of cool, but you’d better keep your hand on your wallet at the reunions.
The three Ucker kids have drifted apart since their father died and was shown to be a thief. Axel has a good job at a bank, but his hobby is drawing up elaborate plans for robberies that he never pulls. Gretchen makes her living by stealing valuable comic books from nerds. The youngest, Kurt, stayed in their old hometown to take care of their aging mother and keep playing death metal with his friends in a garage band.
After their mother dies the three siblings are shocked to learn that she left everything including her house to her favorite TV evangelist, Brother Floom. Another surprise comes when they meet their aunt, an imposing woman who calls herself “Mother”. (Yeah, that’s right. She’s Mother Ucker.)
Mother informs the three that most of the extended Ucker family are criminals, and she introduces all of them. Then she reveals that Brother Floom is really their grandfather who assumed another identity years ago. This is all part of Mother’s pitch to teach them the family business with the ultimate goal of ripping off Floom.
Johnny Shaw always delivers a great mix of crime and humor, and this story plays to his strengths with this comic caper that involves a variety of schemes, double crosses, elaborate robbery plans that never quite work, and a family with more than its share of dysfunction. It’s a romp with a plot that’s constantly moving and a varied cast of characters that has a genuine laugh on almost every page. It’s also got enough heart and brains to it to keep it from being more than just a collection of gags and goofy situations.
My one complaint is that there are so many moving parts to the plot that some things just don’t end up making any sense, and Shaw even acknowledges that in the wrap up with one character shrugging off inconsistencies by saying that they were ideas and improvisations that weren’t needed in the end. That’s a bit of a cheat, but it didn’t really bother me because stories built around elaborate cons and schemes are frequently designed to keep things from the audience, not necessarily to make sense within the story. See the scene in Oceans’s 11 when George Clooney is questioned about why one of their own crew wasn’t told about a key piece of the plan. Clooney’s response is to essentially wink at the camera and say, “What fun would that have been?”
It’s a similar thing here. If you like the story, it works. I liked this just fine, and it worked for me.
Full disclosure – I once contributed an unpaid review to Shaw’s Blood & Tacos e-zine....more
When you ask Parker for a loan you’d better make sure that he agrees with the terms or else he’ll really make you pay.
It’s not unusual for Parker’s aWhen you ask Parker for a loan you’d better make sure that he agrees with the terms or else he’ll really make you pay.
It’s not unusual for Parker’s accomplices to try to rip him off after they pull a robbery, but this one plays out differently from the typical stab in the back. Instead of just trying to kill him and take all the loot these guys first try to talk Parker into coming in with them and using all the money they just stole to finance their next job which they claim will be a highly lucrative jewel heist in Palm Beach. It’s only when Parker refuses and demands his cut that these guys reluctantly take all the money, but they promise that it’s only a loan which they will repay as soon as they complete this other robbery. It’s all very civilized as far as ripping off a partner goes, but of course they didn’t realize that they’re messing with the wrong guy. Parker promptly starts building a fake identity as a rich guy looking to buy a house in Palm Beach as part of his revenge scheme. He’s got a solid plan, but as usual things never run smoothly for Parker.
A plot about Parker being betrayed by his partners and setting out to get his money back is pretty standard for the series, and it’s all done as well as you’d expect from Richard Stark (a/k/a Donald Westlake). As a Parker novel this is a solid 3 stars, but there’s two things that I found absolutely delightful in this book.
First, Parker’s share of the original score is $20,000. He doesn’t want to throw in with the jewel heist and potentially make a lot more because he doesn’t like about the plan. After the other thieves take the money Parker then goes on a crime spree to build up the funds he’ll need to establish a whole new identity as a rich man. During this he probably makes well over $200,000 in a string of quick robberies. The fact that he is so peeved about losing 20 grand that he makes over 10 times that amount without breaking a sweat and still feels the need to use it to go after the guys who ripped him off rather than just take that money and call it a day is quintessential Parker, and I love it.
The second thing that I gave this one bonus points for is a scene that occurs while Parker is playing the part of a wealthy man looking to buy a house, and he has a real estate lady showing him around Palm Beach. This woman talks a ton of trash about a certain orange shitbag buying an estate there including this gem: "I think a place must be a little déclassé if Donald Trump has even heard of it."
Donald Westlake was so cool he can throw shade from beyond the grave....more
It’s hard to be a black sheep in a family of thieves and swindlers, but Collie Rand managed to pull it off by going on a murder spree during which he It’s hard to be a black sheep in a family of thieves and swindlers, but Collie Rand managed to pull it off by going on a murder spree during which he killed several innocent people including a child.
Terrier Rand couldn’t cope with what his brother did and took off for five years, but with the execution date approaching he reluctantly comes home when Collie asks to see him. Collie tells Terry that while he’s guilty of most of crimes that he didn’t kill one young woman that was pinned on him, and that he fears that a serial killer may be out there commiting more murders.
Collie has a long history of play mind games as well as being a homicidal jerkface so Terry doubts his brother, and his homecoming isn’t a pleasant trip down memory lane. He finds his family still reeling with the shock and shame of Collie’s crimes as well as other issues, and he’s still in love with the woman he skipped out on even though she married one of his best friends. As he tries to help his family pull the pieces back together and come to terms with his past Terry begins looking into the possibility that Collie is telling the truth about another killer.
I’ve heard a lot of good things about the late Tom Piccirilli, but while there was a lot I liked in this it also had a lot of elements that didn’t work for me. The idea of a guy raised by a family of criminals coming home and investigating a murder is a nice hook, and the writing is very solid overall. However, I had a lot of problems with the tone of the book.
As our first person narrator we spend the entire book with Terry’s angst, and that’s understandable to some extent. If this was straight-up character based crime fiction, like from a Richard Price type of ultra realistic story, then it’d be fine and Piccirilli kinda gets there. Yet it’s also got this kind of gimmicky criminal underworld thing that seems more like something that belong in a Richard Stark novel or a John Wick movie. There’s so much stuff like that from the way the whole Rand family is named after types of dogs to the descriptions of their house being stuffed with hidden spaces filled with loot from heists over the years. (You’d think a family of known thieves wouldn’t want a house filled with evidence of their crimes.) Again, if that’s what you’re going for and you put a criminal playing detective in that world then that’s a solid idea.
But trying to mix serious character drama with a guy brooding about his family and his regrets doesn’t sync up with a story about thieves who seem to have been imported from a pulp novel. Then you add in the serial killer story which gets pretty stupid and melodramatic in the end, and it just feels like a lot of scattered elements that don’t work well together.
It’s also possible that I’m still so creeped out from reading I'll Be Gone in the Dark a few weeks ago that I refuse to sympathize with a guy who breaks into people’s houses when they’re sleeping. Whatever the reason, this one didn’t live up to a strong start for me....more
Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips churn out so many excellent comics that I managed to completely miss that they did this one which was absolutely ‘criminEd Brubaker and Sean Phillips churn out so many excellent comics that I managed to completely miss that they did this one which was absolutely ‘criminal’ of me.
(Yeah, I know. I apologize for that one.)
We’re back with the Lawless family in the ‘70s as Teeg spends some time in jail reading comics and killing inmates who are trying to cash in on the price that’s been laid on his head for some reason. Once released Teeg takes his young son Tracy on a road trip during which Teeg is hunting people while Tracy is on the prowl for a particular comic.
As always the crime story and art here are top notch, but the extra treat is that we get to read bits of the ‘70s style comic magazines along with Teeg and Tracy. Teeg’s story is about a Conan style barbarian with all the nudity and violence that era’s black & white mags could offer while Tracy is reading the adventures of Fang, the Kung-Fu Werewolf. And now I really want Brubaker and Phillips to actually do a whole run of that title because who wouldn't want to read a comic about a kung-fu werewolf?...more
The first volume set up the premise of a young man named Dylan saved from an attempted suicide from aIt’s hard out here for a masked vigilante killer.
The first volume set up the premise of a young man named Dylan saved from an attempted suicide from a demon who now demands that he kill at least one bad person a month or forfeit his own life. While reluctant at first Dylan is getting better, if not downright enthusiastic, about murdering jerkfaces. Unfortunately, this makes him a little cocky and sloppy, and he soon has both the NYPD and the Russian mob on his trail. And of course there’s still a distinct possibility that the cheese is slipping off Dylan’s mental cracker, and that there is no demon.
What I’m really enjoying about this is the way that it pops the fantasy balloon of gun toting vigilantes being the best way to clean up the streets. Dylan may have a certain knack for finding and killing assholes, but it’s always a messy and bloody business that ultimately solves nothing and creates more cycles of escalating violence. Maybe best of all is that Brubaker and Phillips have stripped out any notions that this is ‘cool’. There’s no smirking Charles Bronson blowing away punks nor a Punisher with a bad ass skull logo on his chest dispensing street justice. It’s just a scared and probably disturbed young man with a ski mask and a gun causing a lot of unintentional damage to everyone around him whether they deserve it or not....more
I received a free advance copy from NetGalley for review.
Apparently the American mob is just like Starbucks in that they’ve got franchises everywhere,I received a free advance copy from NetGalley for review.
Apparently the American mob is just like Starbucks in that they’ve got franchises everywhere, including Alaska.
Isaiah Coleridge is an enforcer who has been working this frozen turf for a while, but he gets in big trouble after crossing a deadly local boss. That earns him a vicious beating as well as a dangerous enemy. He’s also exiled from Alaska and sent to live on a farm in upstate New York as part of his punishment. Isaiah is content to follow orders about staying away from family business as he spends his days shoveling shit for the couple who run the place, and he makes several new friends while living a quiet life. However, when the couple’s wild young granddaughter disappears after hanging around several lowlifes Isaiah can’t help but to reenter the murky underworld of mobsters, dangerous gangs, murderous hillbillies, crooked cops, and Feds to try and find her.
Bottom line here is that this a really solid and entertaining piece of crime fiction. I was a shade disappointed that we didn’t get more in Alaska because I thought the entire novel was set there and was looking forward to an offbeat locale, but the rural New York area also makes for an interesting place to have a mob enforcer doing his thing.
The most interesting aspect is Isaiah himself. He’s the son of a Maori woman and a former American military officer so he had an army brat upbringing. As a mob enforcer he’s an expert at both dishing out and being on the receiving end of extreme violence. He’s also a smart guy with a taste for the old school epics like The Odyssey as well as the occasional sip of whiskey. Throw in a soft spot for animals which can bring on John Wick levels of violence when triggered, and you’ve got a complex character who smoothly narrates the twists and turns of the story.
My main complaint is that it’s all just a bit much. The personal story of Isaiah being in the mob’s doghouse and dealing with own issues is deep enough. However, when you add in the hunt for the missing woman which entails layers of navigating mob protocol and then add mercenaries to the mix, that’s maybe one or two scoops of stories too much. Still, I’d be happy to read more of Isaiah’s adventures....more
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