It’s gotta be hard for anyone writing the main character as a professional thief in crime fiction because the comparisons to Richard Stark’s Parker arIt’s gotta be hard for anyone writing the main character as a professional thief in crime fiction because the comparisons to Richard Stark’s Parker are going to be unavoidable and most are going to fall short of that very high bar. However, with this fourth book in the series it’s past time where Wallace Stroby’s Crissa Stone is judged on her own merits, and she easily passes that test.
Crissa is contacted by a rich man named Cota who needs a thief. He had gotten his hands on valuable statues illegally taken from the Middle East during America’s recent military actions, but he got found out and is being forced to return them. With a buyer ready to fork over big money for the statues, Cota wants her to steal them as they are being transported so that he can double dip by selling them and claiming the insurance money while also being absolved of the blame of them not being returned. Hey, rich people didn’t get rich by not being greedy.
Cota wants Crissa to work with his guy Hicks, a former soldier turned gun for hire. Things begin smoothly enough as Crissa comes up with a plan, and she and Hicks recruit a team to pull it off. If you think that things don’t go off the rails at some point then I’m guessing that you’re unfamiliar with how these types of stories work.
All the tropes of these kind of novels are in play with the thief just trying to do the job but facing betrayals and complications. From the standpoint of a heist novel it’s a solid example of the genre, but it’s the character of Crissa that makes it more than that.
She is a pragmatic and competent professional who wants to pull off the robbery without anyone getting hurt, but a life outside the normal boundaries of society continues to take a toll on her emotionally. The man she loves is in prison, her daughter is being raised by a relative, and the number of people she can trust shrinks with every book. The question of whether she’s really doing it for the money or the thrill are also raised in this one. All of these factors make Crissa far more sympathetic and interesting than the anti-hero characters you generally get in these type of books.
As usual in this series Stroby has written a top notch crime novel without an ounce of fat in it that still finds time to develop its characters in the midst of its fast paced action.
If the fictional adventures of characters like Parker and Walter White have taught me anything about crime it’s that no matter how smart, capable and If the fictional adventures of characters like Parker and Walter White have taught me anything about crime it’s that no matter how smart, capable and disciplined you are the problem is that you still have to deal with criminals who will probably be stupid, lazy, greedy, short-sighted, hot-tempered, untrustworthy and/or murderous. It’s this factor that is causing Crissa Stone no end of headaches.
Since her introduction in the last book Cold Shot to the Heart Crissa has been busy trying to get as much money as possible to replenish her nest egg and bribe prison officials in Texas to get her boyfriend and fellow thief paroled. After her partnership with a couple of guys stealing ATMs goes sour, Crissa has returned to New York to check in with her lawyer and launder some money, but things don’t go smoothly.
Needing more quick cash Crissa takes a meeting with former wise guy turned federal witness Benny Roth who has quite a story to tell. Benny was involved with the legendary Lufthansa heist in 1978, but when the boss started murdering participants rather than pay them their share Benny went into Witness Protection. With the big boss recently deceased, Benny thinks he may know where a large part of the cash is still stashed, and he needs the help of a pro to get it. The problem is that another psychotic mobster thinks the cash should be his, and he’s hot on Benny’s trail to get it.
It’d be easy to just say that Crissa is the female Parker, and she does share a pragmatic professionalism with him. However, Crissa is more empathetic and isn’t as cold-blooded as Parker. In fact, if she was a bit more willing to pull the trigger on some of the assholes she deals with, she could probably save herself some problems down the road. Its a mistake to think of her as weak though because when she’s pushed Crissa is a force to be reckoned with
There’s also an interesting undercurrent with having a woman operating in the underworld like this because Stroby incorporates a subtle discrimination into the books in Crissa’s interactions with other criminals. There’s a definite feeling that some of these guys wouldn’t be trying to double-cross her if she was a man so apparently hoodlums aren‘t models of gender equality.
At a brief 266 pages, Stroby keeps things moving along while still taking time to let us know who Crissa is as well as develop supporting players like Buddy. Crissa’s second outing is another fast-paced gritty crime story that has me looking forward to reading the next one. ...more
Crissa Stone is the kind of woman who can steal your heart. She’ll probably also get any other valuables you have because she’s a professional thief.
HCrissa Stone is the kind of woman who can steal your heart. She’ll probably also get any other valuables you have because she’s a professional thief.
Her mentor/partner/lover Wayne is locked up in a Texas prison, and Crissa needs cash in a hurry to help grease the wheels for his parole. A high stakes poker game in Florida seems like a good score so she joins up with a couple of other pros to hit it, but complications arise during the robbery. Crissa returns to New York where she lives under a false identity, but a brutal killer named Eddie Santiago is on the trail of the stolen money.
Any story about a professional thief is usually going to draw comparisons to Richard Stark’s Parker series since he’s the modern archetype that inspired countless imitators, but the pro thief characters are almost exclusively male so the idea of having a female lead was a new spin on the idea. While Crissa is smart, cautious and capable, she’s not a sociopath like Parker, and its her emotions and attachments that make her stand-out from the usual no-nonsense-get-the-job-done kind of guy we’d usually have for the lead in this kind of book. In addition to her loyalty and concern for Wayne, she’s also quietly heartbroken about having had to leave her daughter to be raised by her cousin.
On the other end of the scale we’ve got the villain Eddie who is the kind of ruthless bastard that it’s a pleasure to hate. Newly released from prison, Eddie is anxious to work out old grudges against his old mob buddies as well as take every dollar he can lay his hands on. Whether he’s browbeating a former partner who has gone straight to rejoin him or trying to recover money he thinks he was owed, Eddie is terrifying in his directness. He wants what he wants, and he wants it right now. If that means taking a razor to someone to get what needs, then he’s more than willing to do it.
I heard about this series when George Pelecanos was raving about the newest book on Twitter, and after this first one I can see why. I was into this book from the opening sentence, and its tight plot and well drawn characters completely sucked me into it. I can’t wait to read more about Crissa Stone and see what happens next.
This isn’t going to do a thing to help Detroit's image.
In this third book of the series, Crissa has traveled to the Motor City to take part in heistinThis isn’t going to do a thing to help Detroit's image.
In this third book of the series, Crissa has traveled to the Motor City to take part in heisting a sizable amount of cash from a local drug kingpin. Despite Crissa’s caution and competence things take a bad turn. There’s more trouble on the way when the kingpin hires an ex-cop named Burke to track down the thieves and his missing money.
It’s tempting to just call Crissa a female version of Richard Stark’s professional thief/anti-hero Parker, and it’s obvious that he was an inspiration to Wallace Stroby. However, it isn’t like he just put a dress and a wig on Parker. Crissa actually has emotions and a conscience, and sometimes her life would be easier if she didn't. While she’s more than capable as a thief as well as dealing with violent situations her default state isn’t to kill anyone causing a problem in front of her, and she’s also struggling with the loneliness and lack of connections that come with living outside normal society.
The book also tips the cap to Elmore Leonard with the dedication and its dialogue and characters, particularly Burke who is a great villain with shades of Leonard in his take-no-shit attitude and no nonsense way of going after the money. The Detroit and Florida settings are another nod to Leonard, and decaying Detroit filled with blocks of vacant houses and businesses is a great stage for a crime novel like this.
Each book in this series has gotten me more involved and excited about Crissa as a character and reading about her trying to deal with bad people while keeping her essential humanity intact is a refreshing change from the usual sociopath that most authors feel like a bad guy (or girl) character such as a professional thief needs to be. I’m already looking forward to the fourth one. ...more
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