MostlyFiction Book Reviews » Heist We Love to Read! Wed, 14 May 2014 13:06:32 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.3 WYATT by by Garry Disher /2011/wyatt-by-by-garry-disher/ /2011/wyatt-by-by-garry-disher/#comments Fri, 16 Sep 2011 13:37:03 +0000 /?p=20951 Book Quote:

“A getaway needn’t be speedy if it’s accurate and efficient.” Wyatt said. “Vanishing, that’s the thing, and that means anticipation.”

Book Review:

Review by Guy Savage  (SEP 16, 2011)

Australian author Garry Disher has a solid reputation for his Inspector Challis police procedurals, but on Disher’s other creative side of the law, there’s also the Wyatt series. Wyatt, a methodical, cool and collected anti-hero is a Melbourne crook, and Disher’s Wyatt series is frequently considered by crime aficionados as an Aussie counterpart to Robert Parker’s Stark series. Wyatt, a heist novel, is the seventh book in the series and it appears after a 13-year-break.

Melbourne has long been known as a hot bed of police corruption, and the city was also home to the notorious Pettingill crime family. Wyatt, however, is a crook who prefers to hunt alone–except for the occasional tip, and in this novel, it’s the tip that leads to trouble.

Wyatt receives inside information from a “fixer, an agent, a middle-man” named Eddie–a man who “could sit on a half-formed plan for years until the right circumstances come along.” Eddie usually provides information, and then sits out on the crime while getting a percentage of the cut. This time Eddie wants a role in the heist, and the job comes courtesy of inside information from Eddie’s sexy ex-wife, Lydia. Lydia used to work for a jeweler who did business with the Furneaux brothers, Henri and Joe. Lydia’s a bright woman who was groped once too often by the brothers, and now she has some valuable information regarding the under-the-table deals conducted by the Furneaux brothers. Seems they own a large Melbourne jewelry store and make deliveries of valuable items all over Southern New South Wales. The beauty of the plan is that the Furneaux brothers fence stolen jewelry brought in from various points all over the world by their cousin, Alain Le Page. As Eddie says: “That’s the beauty of it—we rob a robber.”

Right at the planning stage of the heist, Wyatt has a feeling that there’s something not quite right. For a start, Eddie wants to be involved, and then he’s bringing in his ex-wife Lydia as a crew member. Involving an ex- goes against the grain for Wyatt–after all, there’s a lot of dirty unfinished business between ex-spouses. Who’s to know whether or not one has an axe to grind against the other? In this case, Wyatt’s known Eddie for a long time, but he’s not sure exactly what Lydia’s game is. However, Wyatt finds himself “recognizing something of himself in Eddie’s ex-wife. She was naturally wary and assessing, and silence was probably her natural state.” But beyond feeling a grudging respect for Lydia’s intelligence, Wyatt also feels a reluctant attraction.

In spite of the fact that Wyatt intuitively senses that there’s something wrong with the heist set-up, he decides to go ahead–after all, he’s down on his luck and needs to make a score.

Wyatt should have listened to his sixth sense…..

The novel makes the point that Wyatt is in many ways becoming an anachronism. He’s strictly a low-tech thief and he’s finding fewer situations that accommodate his talents:

“Where could a man like Wyatt lift cash these days? Money was moved around electronically. If cash was used, it was stored and protected by the kinds of high-tech security that he couldn’t hope to crack or bypass, not without the help of experts and costly equipment. That left paintings and jewelry, which were also highly protected and could only be shifted by a fence who’d give you a few dollars and then sell you out.”

If things don’t look up for Wyatt soon, he may be left with purse-snatching as his only option.

Wyatt is a definite read for fans of heist novels. While Soho Crime publishes Disher’s Inspector Challis novels, the earlier novels in the Wyatt series are out-of-print, and so Wyatt may be the first novel readers catch in the series. Much is made of the “legend” of Wyatt in the plot, and that’s hard to relate to if, like me, you haven’t heard of this character before. But nonetheless, this is a well-conducted heist novel complete with corrupt coppers, a psychotic hit man, and a deranged stripper who’s parted ways with her pole.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-5from 7 readers
PUBLISHER: Soho Crime (August 9, 2011)
REVIEWER: Guy Savage
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Garry Disher
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Partial Bibliography:

  • Approaches: Stories (1981)
  • Steal Away (1987)
  • The Difference to Me: Stories (1988)
  • The Stencil Man (1988)
  • Flamingo Gate (1991)
  • The Sunken Road (1996)
  • Straight, Bent and Barbara Vine: Crime Stories (1997)
  • Past the Headlands (2001)
  • Play Abandoned (2011)

The Challis and Destry Novels

Wyatt Series:

]]> /2011/wyatt-by-by-garry-disher/feed/ 0 THE AMATEURS by Marcus Sakey /2011/the-amateurs-by-marcus-sakey/ /2011/the-amateurs-by-marcus-sakey/#comments Sat, 06 Aug 2011 14:40:05 +0000 /?p=19952 Book Quote:

“Do you remember?” Mitch said staring out the darkened window, “how we used to talk about the rich guys, the CEOs and politicians? How we used to hate them for acting in their own interests instead of for the good of everyone else

“We went into this thinking we were going to stick it to guys like that. Like Johnny. People who broke the rules for their own good. And now here we are. Thinking the same way.”

Book Review:

Review by Devon Shepherd  AUG 6, 2011)

The titular novices of Marcus Sakey’s recent novel, The Amateurs, are four friends, three men and one woman, who band together against the frigidity of Chicago’s winters and the loneliness of urban life to form the Thursday Night Drinking Club. But amateur drinkers these four are not – experts in the art of throwing back martinis, the first thing any of these four do in a time of crisis is reach for a bottle of vodka. If only the same could be said for their foray into the criminal underworld.

Rounding thirty, they are poster children for urban ennui: Alex is a former law-student whose sideline as a bartender turned full-time ten years ago when his now-ex wife gave birth to their daughter, Cassie; Ian, a trader with a coke problem, flew too high, too fast with a phenomenal trade in undervalued Hudson-Pollam Biolabs stock, only to face increasing loss and derision as he stalks the financial markets, looking for another off-the-radar meteor to ride back to his seat among the stars; Mitch is a bookish hotel doorman who carries a torch for Jenn, the only female member of their drinking crew, but lacks the spine to do anything about it; Jenn is a travel agent who dreams of travelling herself but can’t seem to commit to making it happen, much like she can’t seem to commit to any of the men she dates, content to coast along on what is left of her good looks. If the group reads like a clichéd list of youngish urbanites, well that is largely because it is. But in lieu of nuanced characters, Mr. Sakey presents us with a moral dilemma.

Imagine you could steal a substantial sum of money, not enough to make you rich, but enough to alleviate some of your immediate problems and broaden your future horizons, would you do it? What if I promised you wouldn’t get caught? Or what if that money belonged to people you knew were overdue for some karmic comeuppance, people like professional criminals?

That is the question the Thursday Night Drinking Crew faces when Alex’s no-good boss, Johnny Love, bullies him into posing as muscle for an after-hours deal. The money for the deal is locked away in a safe, but Alex knows the combination. Resentful of Johnny Love for coercing his participation, Alex tells the crew about the deal. With their last game of “What would you do if . . .. you had half-a-million dollars?” (called “Ready-go” here) still fresh in their minds, the others are primed and ready to fantasize about travelling the world or day trading themselves to a fortune, but the stakes for Alex are much higher.

Cassie’s step-father has received a promotion that requires moving the family to Phoenix. Alex’s ex-wife informs him that, while she has no intention of keeping his daughter from him, due to a series of late or missed child support payments, he doesn’t have a legal say in the matter. Figuring (bizarrely) that making up the late payments will give him the legal right to stop the move, Alex pushes his friends, first Jenn, who he’s casually sleeping with, then Ian, who has developed a gambling problem (and the concomitant debts) to help him steal the money. Following Alex’s lead, the group uses Mitch’s crush on Jenn to coax him out of his reluctance.

Because why should they be shut out when everyone else has their hands in the cookie jar? Bear Stearns is in the midst of collapsing as the sub-prime mortgage crisis guts the economy, leaving many on Wall Street millions, if not billions, of dollars richer. Regular people like them are being stolen from everyday. Why shouldn’t they step up and start taking want they want too?

Ian brings up a problem that has become a classic in both game theory and moral philosophy, The Prisoner’s Dilemma. Although it can take many forms, the dilemma is usually presented in the form of two people getting arrested for a crime. The police know they are guilty, but don’t have enough evidence to press charges. The criminals are separated and told that if they rat out their partner they will go free, but their partner will get 10 years. If both criminals stay silent, they will each get charged with a lesser crime that carries a penalty of, say, 6 months in jail. If both confess, they will split the time, each serving 5 years. What is the rational thing to do here? If maintaining your freedom is a priority, then obviously you’re best off confessing before your friend does. But if the game is repeated, that is, if after the first prisoner confesses, the second prisoner is still given the opportunity to confess, the best thing to do over time is to stay silent, because 6 months (the time served if both stay silent) is better than 5 years (the time served if both confess).
Since the Thursday Night Drinking Club do not belong to the criminal underworld, and do not need to maintain trust and relationships of fellow criminals, there is no iteration of the game for them, and so, according to Ian, they have nothing to lose, and much to gain, by betraying Johnny Love.

But, in moral philosophy, the Prisoner’s Dilemma is often used to illustrate how rational self-interest can produce socially undesirable outcomes. Or to put it another way, the problem describes the tension between self-interest and the interests of the group, because a group where everyone acts in self-interest can sometimes produce individuals that are all worse off than they would have been if they had acted in the interest of the group.

As the four friends plan their heist, they fail to anticipate some obvious contingencies, and the robbery goes the only way it could – horribly wrong. Left with a pile of money and a new set of problems, the group promises to lay low for a while, each swearing not to spend their share of the money until the heat has died down and they’re sure they’re beyond suspicion.

But group interests aren’t enough to keep Alex from breaking their pact and paying his overdue child support. Ian, fearing for their personal safety (when Ian exchanged information about their plan for guns, Katz, the gangster running an illegal casino, threatened the lives of his friends if he didn’t settle immediately following the robbery) pays off his gambling debts. However, word travels fast in the underworld, and Victor, the other end of Johnny Love’s deal, gets wind of this ridiculously inept band of robbers. Not planning on ever having to deal with these criminals again, the group didn’t account for iteration – and as things go from bad to heart-breakingly horrible, they quickly realize that what they made the wrong choice: they should have played it straight instead of betraying a group of known criminals.

Despite all this philosophy – Plato, Nietzsche, and Sartre all get paraphrased for good measure – this is a darkly effervescent book. In this fast-paced and entertaining novel, Mr. Sakey spins the crime genre on its head to ask what happens when regular folk take it into their heads to become criminals.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-5from 25 readers
PUBLISHER: NAL Trade; Reprint edition (June 7, 2011)
REVIEWER: Devon Shepherd
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Marcus Sakey
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

]]> /2011/the-amateurs-by-marcus-sakey/feed/ 0 AFTER LYLETOWN by K.C. Frederick /2011/after-lyletown-by-k-c-frederick/ /2011/after-lyletown-by-k-c-frederick/#comments Mon, 01 Aug 2011 14:20:07 +0000 /?p=19275 Book Quote:

“In his mid-forties, he feels he’s come to a pretty good place in his life, and he couldn’t have got there if he hadn’t been able to survive some of his earlier selves, forgiving, maybe, but also forgetting, even erasing. From his present vantage point, it isn’t exactly magnanimity he feels toward the passionate but confused graduate student he’d been twenty years ago. From that time onward he’s been acutely aware of the importance of chance in the affairs of human beings, and he hopes it’s given him a better understanding of people who are down on their own luck. But what he feels toward the person he’d been then is mostly relief that he’s been able to move beyond him.”

Book Review:

Review by Bonnie Brody (AUG 1, 2011)

It’s 1968 and Alan Ripley is a graduate student. He is definitely a man of his era, tuning in, turning on and, to some extent, dropping out. He is attending a party and the posters on the wall are of Dylan, Che and Stokely. “Like the saints in old churches, Alan thinks, the measure of our dreams and aspirations, our doubts about ourselves.” At this party, Alan meets Lily, a true revolutionary who wants to provide guns to oppressed black people.

The problem is how to get the guns. Alan is attracted more to Lily and her drugs than to her politics but he goes along with her as Lily machinates a caper designed to provide weapons to the oppressed. The idea is that some students, along with two ex-cons, will rob a gun store and give all the guns to the oppressed black population. Alan agrees to participate as a watchman. He will be in the car and be a spotter for anything suspicious going on. On the day of the heist, however, Alan feels sick and he ends up in the hospital getting his appendix out. A man named Rory takes Alan’s place. The caper fails as an off-duty policeman sees the suspicious goings on and gunfire erupts. One man is killed and the policeman is injured. Rory gets caught by the police and spends fifteen years in jail. The heist is known as the Lyletown Five, after the five participants.

Despite being caught by the police, Rory never gave them Alan’s name though he did give the police other information including the names of the other participants. Alan has always been thankful that he hasn’t been implicated in this debacle though he is not sure why Rory spared him. He never visits Rory in jail as they really didn’t know each other very well.

Fast forward to 1988, “After Lyletown.” Right after the caper, Alan spent some time in solitude in Vermont and later decided to study law. Alan becomes a successful attorney near Boston. He is a partner in a law firm that represents a housing project and Alan gets to work with both renters and tenants. He has a wife and son and is happy. He plays tennis, has a weekend home in Connecticut and is living the good life. Out of the blue he gets a phone call from Rory. Alan is scared, not knowing what Rory wants. Is it blackmail, money, just catching up, or what? He agrees to meet Rory for lunch.

Rory tells him a bit about his time in jail and informs Alan that the other Lyletown Five, have never been seen or heard from again. There are rumors that one of them died in a car crash and that Lily owns and runs a bakery in Washington. Rory does ask for some money but it’s for a “business venture” and he assures Alan he will pay him back with interest.

The novel examines who we are now and who we were in the past. Which one of our selves is the real one or are all our selves real, past and present? The parts of the book that deal with Alan and Rory are psychologically astute and excellent reading. The book flounders some in the middle when it takes a turn and focuses on Alan’s legal work which is not really all that relevant to the book.

The language is crisp and the dialogue right on. I found myself back in the sixties remembering C.O.R.E., SDS, the Weathermen and other political movements. Images of Timothy Leary popped into my head and I remember the immense allure of “flower power,” trying to make real change in the government and protesting the war in Vietnam. K.C. Frederick gets all of this along with the picture of baby boomers – their paths to the present and their lives in the past.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-5-0from 6 readers
PUBLISHER: Permanent Press (July 1, 2011)
REVIEWER: Bonnie Brody
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: K.C. Frederick
EXTRAS: Award winning author
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

]]> /2011/after-lyletown-by-k-c-frederick/feed/ 0 DOORS OPEN by Ian Rankin /2010/doors-open-by-ian-rankin/ /2010/doors-open-by-ian-rankin/#comments Sun, 31 Jan 2010 02:16:46 +0000 /?p=7565 Book Quote:

“Seems to me,” he eventually offered, “we’re all up to something, Mike—even you. That means there’s going to be winners and losers. Want to take a bet which side I’ll be on?”

Book Review:

Review by Guy Savage (JAN 29, 2010)

The title of Ian Rankin’s latest stand-alone crime thriller is Doors Open, and this title has both literal and figurative meanings. Figuratively the title refers to the “open doors” of opportunities and decisions. “Open doors” are those moments when we glimpse the possibilities of choice and a different sort of future, and during those moments we decide whether or not to pass through that open door, or just walk away….

The idea of missed opportunities and different futures certainly rankles the “three musketeers”–a nickname given to three male friends by Laura Stanton, an attractive Edinburgh art dealer. The three men, who hang out at art auctions together, at first glance seem to make unlikely friends. There’s Robert Gissing, a professor on the verge of retirement, middle-aged bank executive Allan Cruickshank who’s going through an expensive divorce, and millionaire Mike Mackenzie. Of the three men, only Mackenzie can afford to buy paintings at auctions, but the painting he really wants isn’t for sale.

One day, Gissing suggests a plan; as a respected art critic, with access to galleries and their vaults, Gissing proposes a bold plan to rob a vault that stores priceless overstock–the paintings Edinburgh galleries don’t display due to space considerations. Gissing, who’s obviously given this a great deal of thought, proposes to raid the overstock vaults of the National Galleries during Doors Open day–a period when security is somewhat relaxed as the public descends for the free-admission access to Edinburgh landmarks that either normally charge for entrance or are usually closed to the public.

While Gissing’s plan is well-thought through, so much can potentially go wrong, and at first while the more cautious Cruickshank is wary of the idea, Mackenzie leaps at the chance to steal the painting he covets. Rankin builds a credible story by depicting characters who see the heist as an opportunity to correct their lives. Gissing, given to rants about those hoarders and collectors who buy art just to hide it away in their private collections, hypocritically seeks to do the very same thing; Cruickshank has reached a dead-end in his personal life and in his career, and he’s secretly thrilled to think he could steal two paintings that even his bank cannot afford to buy, and Mackenzie, who becomes a driving force in the heist, begins to have delusions of himself as a tough guy.

Rankin’s psychological insights into the minds of his characters add a great deal to this crime tale, and these insights certainly go a long way towards explaining why someone like Mackenzie–a man who can afford to buy almost everything he wants–would risk getting his hands dirty. Mackenzie is well-matched with his polar opposite, Cruickshank, and it’s clear that while the bank executive wouldn’t go through that “open door” if the decision is left up to him, he’s dragged along into this mess by his personal failures, Gissing’s confidence and also deeply hidden envy of the much wealthier Mackenzie.

Mackenzie is the main character here. Fate causes him to run into an old schoolmate, Chib Calloway, an Edinburgh crime boss whose power is waning. Calloway sees the heist as a segue into greater criminal opportunities, and some of the novel’s best scenes concern Mackenzie impressing Cruickshank with this seemingly practiced criminal actions, while conversely Calloway understands that Mackenzie is, essentially, an amateur.

Scottish author Ian Rankin is probably best known for his Rebus novels, and 2009 brought the publication of Exit Music–a novel that announced the end of Rebus’s less-than-stellar career. Actually I have hopes that Rebus will return in retirement, but it’s good to read Rankin’s stand-alone thriller. While we don’t have time to get fond of the characters in this heist tale, Rankin doesn’t spend all the pages on the chills and thrills of plotting a robbery. He also examines questions of boredom, ownership, and how the desire to impress others has an addictive, toxic lure.

AMAZON READER RATING: we don’t agree with their rating
PUBLISHER: Reagan Arthur Books; 1 edition (January 15, 2010)
REVIEWER: Guy Savage
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Ian Rankin
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:Exit Music
The Naming of the Dead

Fleshmarket Alley

Resurrection Men

Witch Hunt (not part of this series)

Bibliography:

Inspector Rebus Mysteries:

Short Story Collections:

  • A Good Hanging and Other Stories (1992) (Inspector Rebus stories )
  • Hebert In Motion and other stories (1997)
  • Death is not the End : a novella (Inspector Rebus) (1998)
  • Rebus: The Early Years (1999)
  • Rebus: The St. Leonard’s Years (2001)
  • Beggars Banquet: Stories (2002) (21 stories, 7 include Inspector Rebus)

Other Novels:

Originally written as Jack Harvey:

  • Witch Hunt (1993) *
  • Bleeding Hearts (1994) *
  • Blood Hunt (1995) *

*All three thrillers are published in The Jack Harvey Novels (2000)

]]> /2010/doors-open-by-ian-rankin/feed/ 0 THE CORAL THIEF by Rebecca Stott /2009/coral-thief-by-rebecca-stott/ /2009/coral-thief-by-rebecca-stott/#comments Sun, 01 Nov 2009 19:41:29 +0000 /?p=6063 Book Quote:

“ Although I was beginning to question everything I had ever known, even the definition of species, the full implications of transformism still alarmed me. Without belief in order and structure and providence, where would we be? The imagined godlessness of such a world frightened me.”

Book Review:

Review by Poornima Apte (NOV 01, 2009)

Well before Charles Darwin presented the theory of evolution in 1859, there were scientists who thought along similar lines—who believed that species “were mutable and that Nature was on the move.” Much like scientists who came even earlier and set forth what were considered equally radical ideas, these people too—many of whom were in France—were labeled godless heretics.

When Daniel Connor, a freshly minted medical student, travels to Paris in July 1815, his professor in Edinburgh had already warned him about these “heretics”—also known as transformists. “Paris is riddled with infidels, Professor Jameson had warned me back in Edingburgh. ‘They are poets, those French transformists, not men of science,’” Connor recalls.

Connor is on his way to learn from the giants in science who teach and conduct research at France’s famous Jardin des Plantes—“a garden for the enlightenment of the people.” Specifically, he has recommendations from his professor and some corals and fossil specimens, he hopes will impress Cuvier, a leader in the field of anatomy.

But before he can even get to Paris, a beautiful French woman, Lucienne Bernard, dazzles him and ends up stealing his journals and scientific specimens. As it turns out, Lucienne too has been schooled in the essential principles of transformist theory and has even worked in the fields for a prominent French scientist in the field, Professor Lamarck.

Once in Paris, Connor runs into Lucienne over and over again and slowly falls for her. Lamarck and Cuvier are at odds with each other about their scientific views—Cuvier, for one, does not buy into the principles of evolutionary theory but Lamarck does. “Lamarck’s world of change and flux and progress was revolutionary, a world of horizontals and possibilities, whereas Cuvier’s was a world of fixed and vertical hierarchies. Politically, they were absolutely opposed ways of seeing,” the author, Rebecca Stott, explains. It follows that their followers, Lucienne and Connor, also differ in their views of this science and therefore argue with each other about is finer aspects.

Slowly, even as he begins work in the Museum of Comparative Anatomy, as a naturalist’s aide to Professor Cuvier, Lucienne’s transformist theories begin to lodge themselves in Connor and he begins to question his own way of thinking. Even if he “had been taught that questioning the truth of the Bible had eternal consequences.”

“Science isn’t about making things fit with the Bible. Genesis was written two thousand years ago by men who didn’t know what we know. They weren’t trying to explain how the world began, not scientifically. It’s a creation story,” Lucienne explains once.

All well and good. About a third of the way through though, Lucienne suddenly morphs into a plain vanilla thief and for various reasons, has to steal the precious Satar diamond from the Jardin des Plantes (with Connor’s help of course). After this, the book reads like a Parisian version of “Ocean’s 11”—a heist plotted out well and executed smoothly—almost.

The seductive allure of Paris is on full display here and it is as much a central character in the story as any. Rebecca Stott, who wrote the beautifully atmospheric, Ghostwalk, does a good job of painting the smallest historic details of Paris of the early 1800s. Her recounting the fate of Napoleon—who has just been defeated at Waterloo—in very short chapters, especially helps create the atmosphere. These chapters are intermingled with the main story.

Stott seems to have found her calling—in bringing the elements of science to literature. In The Coral Thief, however, it seems as if science sits on the bleachers much too often—allowing other elements of the story line: a romance, a heist, to take over the plot.

Stott tries to create a “beautiful savant” in Lucienne—a strong, mysterious woman. To some extent she succeeds. But the attempts at creating a woman who is haunting and mysterious actually backfires because Lucienne is a character who is never fully realized. In trying to create a woman of mystery devoted to science, neither science nor the woman ends up emerging strong.

“Today I am Dufour the locksmith. Tomorrow I am a linen dealer or a botanical illustrator or a printer’s assistant. In Paris I am many people,” Lucienne says. Therein lies the problem. All those avatars don’t make for an alluring heroine, just a frustrating one.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 15 readers
PUBLISHER: Spiegel & Grau (September 15, 2009)
REVIEWER: Poornima Apte
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Rebecca Stott
EXTRAS: Interview
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of Ghostwalk

More science in fiction:

Bibliography:

Nonfiction:

]]> /2009/coral-thief-by-rebecca-stott/feed/ 0 CRIMINAL KARMA by Steven M. Thomas /2009/criminal-karma-by-steven-m-thomas/ /2009/criminal-karma-by-steven-m-thomas/#comments Sat, 24 Oct 2009 23:30:25 +0000 /?p=5877 Book Quote:

“Being a criminal was my karma, and I wasn’t complaining. The hours were flexible, the money was good, and freebooting was way more interesting than swinging a hammer or sitting on a numb ass in front of a computer screen eight hours a day.”

Book Review:

Review by Bonnie Brody (OCT 24, 2009)

If you’re looking for a good caper and heist book, a thriller to boot, this may be just up your alley. Rob and Reggie are two burglars with their eye on a set of large pink diamonds. At first, their plan to steal these diamonds fails and they have to go at it again. With the second try, things really heat up as they become involved with a crooked ashram in Santa Monica, California. Baba Raba, the Guru of this ashram, also has his eyes on the diamond which he expects to get from one of his disciples, Evelyn. Evelyn is a good-looking but sad woman who is searching for her long-lost daughter and grandchild. Baba Raba is stringing Evelyn along with promises of finding her daughter and grandchild if she gives him her diamonds.

Rob and Reggie are both clowns and excellent burglars. In fact, this book would make a good buddy flick. I kept thinking of actors who could play this pair as I read the book – think Bruce Willis and Woody Harrelson or Colin Farrell and Brad Pitt.

As Rob said in order to justify his doings in the burglary business, “The world of business and government were packed like a college student’s Volkswagen with crooked connivers who, unlike me, topped their sundae of sins with the pickled cherry of hypocrisy. I knew I was a bad guy, and tried to be as nice about it as I could. They thought they were good, which gave them license to be ruthless as hell.”

The book is filled with lots of action and turns of event. It quickly becomes evident that Baba Raba is not just a guru, but has his hands in the real estate business and is mixed up with some very non-ashram types. He also hires muscle-bound goons to watch over his ashram, not what one would expect. Rob is an expert in yoga, especially tantric yoga and this gets a lot of play in the book, especially when Baba Raba attempts to use Tantra on his young fledgling female disciples.

There are some interesting characters that appear throughout the book. The one that I found most unique was Ozone Pacific. He is a boy who got his name because he was left on the street by his mother with instructions not to go beyond the cross streets of Ozone and Pacific. He goes by the nickname ‘Oz’. He has been waiting for his mother for six years and has become a regular of the street people of Venice Beach. For the most part, he is taken care of and watched over rather than victimized. Expect to see some of the Venice Beach freaks that you’d expect – – muscle men, mimes, chain saw jugglers and the like. The book is peopled with them and they are all unique and eye-opening.

For a quick-paced action thriller with interesting characters, this may be the next one to put on your reading list.

PUBLISHER:Ballantine Books (July 28, 2009)

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-5from 11 readers
REVIEWER: Bonnie Brody
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Steven M. Thomas
EXTRAS: Excerpt (scroll down)
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: More caper fun:

More Southern California novels:

Bibliography:

]]> /2009/criminal-karma-by-steven-m-thomas/feed/ 0 GET REAL by Donald E. Westlake /2009/get-real-by-donald-westlake/ /2009/get-real-by-donald-westlake/#comments Sun, 19 Jul 2009 00:08:19 +0000 /?p=2855 Book Quote:

“You’re probably like most guys,” Babe Tuck told them. “You got no idea how lucky you are to be inside an American prison. Except for the rapes, of course. But the rest of it? Heated cells, good clothes, regular food. Not even to talk about the medical care.”

 

“I wish I’d looked at it that way,” Kelp said, “back then.”

 

Book Review:

Reviewed by Guy Savage (JUL 18, 2009)

Years ago I used to watch television. I’d tune in once a week or so to the odd favourite programme, but sometime in the last decade, I found myself becoming really bored with television–its predictable plots, its clichéd dialogue, and the endless peppy adverts designed to loot my wallet. Just when I had decided that television was mind-numbingly stupid, Reality TV arrived, and that’s when I gave up and started using my television set solely to play DVDs. And this brings me to Donald Westlake’s novel Get Real. Realizing the capacity for comedy, several authors have taken the idea of reality television and written some very creative and funny books built on the subject: Ben Elton’s Chart Throb and Dead Famous, for example, and now Westlake tries his hand, and the result is a witty crime caper novel featuring one of Westlake’s regulars, John Dortmunder.

When the novel begins, Dortmunder and his sometime crime buddy Stan are dismayed to discover that Stan’s mother, a New York taxi cab driver has opened her mouth to a passenger about her son’s life of crime. Stan’s mother insists that her fare was a legit Reality TV producer interested in creating a new programme about real crime committed by real criminals, but naturally Dortmunder is suspicious:

“When committing a felony,” Dortmunder pointed out, “the idea is,
you don’t want witnesses. What you want is privacy. And you especially
don’t want the entire television-watching population of America for a
witness.”

Taking the business card left by Doug Fairkeep, Dortmunder decides to check out the reality TV story and he cautiously makes contact. He’s curious but senses a scam–after all, deliberately setting out to record a crime with millions of witnesses goes against the idea of not getting caught.

It seems, however, that Doug Fairkeep is legit and that he does want to film a real heist committed by real criminals. Fairkeep, who’s slick and assured, even has a title for the programme: The Gang’s All Here. And while Fairkeep is delighted with his new concept, it still doesn’t set well with Dortmunder and his pals. “The part I don’t get” Dortmunder said, “is the part where we don’t go to jail.” Assuring Dortmunder that their legal department will handle any snares, Fairkeep offers $20,000 to Dortmunder and each of his associates, plus six hundred a day during the actual filming of the series.

With bait so attractive, Dortmunder agrees and begins to put together a team of men willing to join the venture….

Westlake, who passed away suddenly on December 31, 2008, seems to have had a lot of fun writing this book, and that means it was a lot of fun to read. Westlake creates a slick world in which everyone has a con and everyone is on the make: from a snotty waiter at an overpriced restaurant to Doug Fairkeep–a glib operator whose scams are reduced to fudging expense accounts and misusing his position to bed budding actresses. And what’s so much fun here is that Dortmunder et al–who are the low men on the totem pole of power, set the agenda against the monolithic corporations behind the reality TV show. Refusing to be played as mere brainless entertainment, Dortmunder and his gang have their own scheme, and it’s not long before Fairkeep senses that he’s out of his league. (He’s too much in love with himself to fully grasp that he’s being outmaneuvered.)

Get Real is the fourteenth novel in the Dortmunder series, and it’s a pleasure for fans to see the old gang back in action. The story is fast paced and whipped together with snappy, witty dialogue. Much of the humour is found in the idea that you can’t really plan for reality as reality has a way of writing its own script. The humour works about 90% of the time but hits a sour note once in a while:

“Ah this grandmother of eight had been compelled at last to her true vocation
as love-song lyricist by the flaming car-crash death of her favourite seventeen-year-old granddaughter. Well Grandma, lucky for you she bought it.”

Not funny at all.

But humour is found in the irony of the situation and asking oneself the question: Just who are the biggest crooks here? Dortmunder and his pals or the fat cat corporations who skim and cheat at every opportunity?

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-5from 25 readers
PUBLISHER: Grand Central Publishing (July 17, 2009)
REVIEWER: Guy Savage
AMAZON PAGE: Get Real
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Donald Westlake
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: More Dortmunder SeriesMore Donald E. Westlake reviews:

The Cutie, Somebody Owes Me Money, Money for Nothing, Put a Lid On It

Read a review of Memory

Another (excellent) reality TV novel:

Lost and Found by Carolyn Parkhurst

Bibliography:

Hard Case Crime reprints:

The John Dortmunder Series

]]> /2009/get-real-by-donald-westlake/feed/ 0 WONDERFUL WORLD by Javier Calvo /2009/wonderful-world-by-javier-calvo/ /2009/wonderful-world-by-javier-calvo/#comments Mon, 01 Jun 2009 02:11:47 +0000 /?p=2102 Book Quote:

“The world is wonderful because the world is horrible. And therein lies [a] great wisdom. The crazies get on a bus with a bomb and kill all the passengers. Or that gigantic wave that was on every TV news show. Those are things that make the world wonderful…A world like us. For us. Isn’t it wonderful?”

Book Review:

Reviewed by Mary Whipple (MAY 30, 2009)

Filled with the fragmentation, incoherence and ambiguity that typify much of post-modernist thought, Wonderful World is a challenge for the reader, since the very characteristics which make it “post-modern” are also characteristics which are off-putting for readers who expect a novel to have a clear beginning, middle, and end. And when that novel is almost five hundred pages long, the challenges are even more daunting, since it is difficult to know how much of the incoherence and fragmentation is deliberate and how much may be the result of less than rigorous editing.

In his first novel published in English, Spanish author Javier Calvo creates a dynamic novel which explodes in several different directions at once by the sheer energy of his writing. Setting the story primarily in contemporary Barcelona, he introduces several plot lines which progress seemingly independently, and without explanation, for the first third of the novel, and while they and the huge cast of characters do eventually overlap, the overlaps are almost irrelevant by the conclusion of the novel.

The novel opens thirty years in the past in a bizarre, mood-setting scene in which Lorenzo Giraut, the most important antiques dealer in Spain, hides in a protective “hut” he has made from furniture and a mattress in the living room of an apartment in Camber Sands. Pope John Paul I has just died, the skies are filled with storm clouds and lightning, police cars are screaming, the “American Liaison” is climbing out the window of Lorenzo’s room, and the word “captors” comes inexplicably to Giraut’s mind.

Immediately, the scene shifts to twelve-year-old Valentina Parini, a lover of Stephen King novels, who is awaiting his next book, Wonderful World, due out in less than three weeks. Valentina has written her own book about the decapitation of the girls’ basketball coach and a bomb in her school locker room, and she plans to read it at the school talent show.

In successive scenes, a young engaged couple, vacationing in Ibiza, is told they must pay their hotel bill immediately, though he is out of money. Fanny Giraut, widow of Lorenzo Giraut, is plotting a takeover of the family business from her son Lucas, the legal heir. Lucas, in turn, is planning a major art heist with the aid of four demented criminals. Chapters of the (fictional) Stephen King book are unfolding, with a climactic battle taking place as humans try to escape “Them.” In “real” life, a war between two gangs associated with Lucas’s father Lorenzo plays out in dream sequences, as Lucas tries to unravel who betrayed his father, while his own crooks and a group of Russians compete for the same ill-gotten rewards.

Switching back and forth among plot lines and through different times, Calvo creates a wild, nightmarish world, filled with uninhibited, bawdy humor; violent sex; psychological breakdown; low-life women from all social classes , and even the history of Pink Floyd and its parallels to “life.” The characters are unknowable, though they are fully described, and their predicaments do not arouse empathy.

Unfortunately, long passages of description bog down the novel and dilute its effect—the details of an unimportant episode of “Friends,” being watched by one character, runs to three full pages, for example, and the irrelevant description of a car race for children runs for about the same length. Calvo is, however, a multi-talented young writer. His exuberance and energy operate full tilt for the entire novel, and with some judicious editing of his lengthy descriptions, he may find a broad audience in the English-speaking world for his next novel.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 1 readers
PUBLISHER: Harper; 1 edition (March 17, 2009)
REVIEWER: Mary Whipple
AMAZON PAGE: Wonderful World
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Wikipedia page on Javier Calvo
EXTRAS: Reading Guide and or Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: If you like this, try:
The Raw Shark Textsby Steven HallThe Amnesiac by Sam Taylor

Bibliography:

  • Canned Laughs: Stories (2001)
  • The Reflecting God (2003)
  • The Lost Rivers of London (2005)
  • Wonderful World (2007; March 2009 in US)
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