Pulse en una miniatura para ir a Google Books.
Cargando... Thick as Thieves (2011)por Peter Spiegelman
Books Read in 2016 (2,873) Cargando...
Inscríbete en LibraryThing para averiguar si este libro te gustará. Actualmente no hay Conversaciones sobre este libro. Peter Spiegelman usually writes a good story and this was no exception, except for the fact that I couldn't get into it. Carr and his group are trying for a big payoff, robbing a robber. It all hinges on getting passwords to his computer so that they can access and transfer the funds he has. The book revolves around the setup of the robbery. There are flashbacks to a previous robbery in which Declan, the man who got Carr involved in the first place, disappears along with the proceeds of the robbery and is presumed dead because his car is a burned wreck. (You and I know differently, if you've read any mysteries at all.) While I enjoyed reading Thick as Thieves, it just didn't have that 'thing', whatever it is, that really got you hooked and made you want to keep reading. Possible spoiler alert! I've enjoyed all Peter Spiegelman's books in the John March series which I would highly recommend by the way, this one took a bit longer for it to truly engage me. I think this was probably due to the first half of the book being a little slow moving and repetitive as Carr reminisces about his mother and Declan - the former leader of the criminal crew he now leads and probes the circumstances of his death while dealing with the deteriorating health of his father and how to care for him. The energy ramps up considerably in the latter half as they set about relieving money launderer extraordinaire Curt Prager of $100 million. With zero honour amongst thieves everybody needs to watch their backs and while the re-emergence of characters considered dead doesn't exactly surprise the circumstances in which they do so do. All in all maybe not his best but it succeeds in cranking up the tension and your heartrate when it needs to. I love suspense and thrillers and Spiegelman's style of writing grabbed me right at the start. I wish I could say it held me throughout. The plot has a great premise and the characters came alive on the pages. But soon the flashbacks started and I was continually transported out of the immediacy of the story, as Carr lost himself in his past. A few of these flashbacks would have added substance. For me, the repetition far surpassed necessity and grew to be irritating. The plot at times became a little difficult to follow. We'd be given an abundance of detail on a job they were planning, only to then jump into something totally unrelated. I felt there was too much detail on some things and not enough on others. I did like the characters, though I would have enjoyed this more if the story had been better organized. sin reseñas | añadir una reseña
Distinciones
Fiction.
Mystery.
Suspense.
Thriller.
HTML:A new thriller that takes us inside a hair-raising heist, where paranoia hangs as heavy as the tropical heat, and the only law is Murphys. Carrex-CIAis the reluctant leader of an elite crew planning a robbery of such extraordinary proportions that it will leave them all set for life. Diamonds, money-laundering, and extortion go into a timed-to-the-minute scheme that unfurls across South America, Miami, and Grand Cayman Island. Carrs cohorts are seasoned pros, but theyre wound drum-tight: months before, the man who brought them together was killed in what Carr suspects was a setup. And there are other loose ends. Some of the intel theyre paying for is badly inaccurate, and one of the ganglately, Carrs lovermay have an agenda of her own. Carr finds himself working the paranoid calculus . . . mapping the shifting landscape of who-owes-who and who-owns-who, of loyalty, grudge, and pressurebut his... No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
Debates activosNingunoCubiertas populares
Google Books — Cargando... GénerosSistema Decimal Melvil (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyClasificación de la Biblioteca del CongresoValoraciónPromedio:
¿Eres tú?Conviértete en un Autor de LibraryThing. |
So what put me off considering I liked two other books by Spiegelman? First it was the whole cabron, chica, jefe schtick with Latin Mike. Latin. Mike. As if the whole Spanish lingo dropping wasn’t enough. It put me in mind of something Philip Marlowe said to Dolores in The Little Sister. She, too, peppered her speech with little nuggets of Spanish as part of a disguise. Marlowe called her on it, saying “The only thing Mexican about you is a few words and a careful way of talking that’s supposed to give the impression of a person speaking a language they had to learn. Like saying “do not” instead of “don’t”. That sort of thing.” Latin Mike lays it on thick and it was mildly insulting to read.
Second it was the lack of anyone I could root for. Usually in a good caper novel there is some loveable rogue who wants to right a wrong or something. Barring that, the guy has to be charismatic even if you can’t justify his crime. Not so with this crew. Carr is a bit whiny and can’t control the complainers or curb the hostility in his own team. And team is being generous. Of course you’re supposed to suspect everyone and some are more obvious than others, but if you read enough of this kind of thing, you’ll spot the real bad guy. Hint; it isn’t Mike, irritating as he is.
Val is just a wish-fulfilment vehicle and she deflects every question or dodges every duty she doesn’t like with sex and it seems she shares the joy with more than just Carr (which is asking for trouble on its own). If Carr was half the schemer he thinks he is he’d have kept her at arm's length instead of letting her play him. He sees through her, but not enough to keep his hands off her. Yeah. That and he’s being played by someone else with an even longer game. He has glimmers of his incompetence, but not enough insight to understand just why he’s in the position he is.
And speaking of weak schemer; Carr gets bad intel, the job goes pear-shaped and he consistently blames the source of the information. Any leader worth his salt would have verified a lot of what he was told before going in. So he’s forced to improvise and the rest of the gripers go along with him, bitching loudly. Some of that should have been a give away to Carr as it was to me as a reader. Why would Mike and the others be so distrustful of him yet stick to him? Duh.
The whole thing with Carr’s father was unnecessary and didn’t humanize him in the least. Neither did the family secret unless you want to count the ghost of irony that ties it to the ultimate solution in the plot. Ugh. If you want good heist/caper books read Ross Thomas instead. He was the master! ( )