The design and UX isn't done, Rob and Abbie, okkurrrr! 😌
docpacey's review against another edition
3.0
Quick and easy thriller about a safecracker in LA. One last job, etc.
usbsticky's review against another edition
2.0
2 star = it was ok by GoodRead's 5 star system. This is a neutral rating.
It started off ok for me but I got irritated by the first person staccato delivery. First person narratives aren't a deal killer for me but somehow the narrators feel like they are on something. In a way, it doesn't really matter how the author gets the story across but the protagonists aren't doing a good job of it. In one sense, you can say it's realistic because I really get a feel of the narrators but I just didn't like them and they both felt the same to me. If this was a real encounter, I would just nod politely as they're telling me the story, then try and get away as quickly as possible. To summarize: it's ok to get your narrator to tell the story but get them to tell the story in a fairly clear manner and not be too whiny. There is a good plot in there, but it's lost by poor delivery.
I got this book as a free ARC.
It started off ok for me but I got irritated by the first person staccato delivery. First person narratives aren't a deal killer for me but somehow the narrators feel like they are on something. In a way, it doesn't really matter how the author gets the story across but the protagonists aren't doing a good job of it. In one sense, you can say it's realistic because I really get a feel of the narrators but I just didn't like them and they both felt the same to me. If this was a real encounter, I would just nod politely as they're telling me the story, then try and get away as quickly as possible. To summarize: it's ok to get your narrator to tell the story but get them to tell the story in a fairly clear manner and not be too whiny. There is a good plot in there, but it's lost by poor delivery.
I got this book as a free ARC.
slangston10's review against another edition
4.0
hard to believe parts of it but I fell in love with the characters and loved the book.
thebooktrail88's review against another edition
4.0
Visit the locations in the novel
Perhaps one of the grittiest and most raw novels I’ve read in a long while. I certainly felt that spending so much time with a reformed drug runner turned double agent left me feeling exhausted..in a good way. There’s plenty of drama here but good, raw honesty in the way the characters are portrayed and even down to how they speak and to each other in particular.
This is not the LA the tourist board would have you believe. It’s the mean streets of the drugs gangs and those where there is a large Mexican and hispanic population. The areas are those of the ‘projects’ where the poverty and social deprivation is everywhere, but it’s also where the heart and the humour of a people often lives too.
It all feels very real and very threatening but it fast paced. Not the heist novel it’s billed to be though – I think it’s more than that. A raw honest look at the underbelly of the city – but not for the fainthearted!
quietdomino's review against another edition
"Heat"-style alternate narration between criminal and....less-criminal, turns out staying on just one side of the law is complicated. Plusses for setting and characterization + consciousness of mortgage crisis; minuses for characterization that is excessively mix-tape-based and shallowness of consciousness of mortgage crisis, plus overall length. It's a little saggy for a thriller.
raykluender's review against another edition
3.0
I love Gattis' voice and it comes through in this sentimental thriller. At the end of the day, this one paled in comparison to All Involved (which was a full 5-star tell-all-my-friends book). It too often devolved into exposition (the Nayarit cartels are entirely uninvolved but we get 3 explanations of their business model) and the characters' motivations were not so believable. Nevertheless, looking forward to Gattis' new book coming out later this year and will read it.
rly18's review against another edition
3.0
3.5 stars you can find all my reviews at www.itsbooktalk.com
For some reason I'm finding this book hard to review. On the one hand, there is so much I liked about it and up until about 60%, I felt it was ticking along quite nicely. I loved that it started off with a safecracking scene and felt that until that point I was really invested in the story. After that, however, Â it started to slip for me and by the end I feel like I had disconnected from the story just a little which is very strange considering how much I started off liking it.
The story starts off action packed as we are introduced to Ricky, aka Ghost, a safecracker who freelances for the DEA. He's been called to a house of the DEA's most recent drug bust and then left alone (yes alone!) to open the safe with instructions to call the DEA agent in charge after he gets it open. Here's what's so interesting about this scene....we learn from Ricky's first person narration that in his past he was an addict and criminal who did some very bad things but for the past several years he's tried to do right and now has a plan to really help some people who need it. His plan involves taking the cash in that safe and using it to help others in need.  And with this current safe, he hits the jackpot. Time is ticking though because the safe he has just cracked and the money he has stolen belongs to one of the biggest drug lords in LA and you just know things aren't going to go well when he finds out his money is gone.
Here is where the story alternates narration and we then meet Rudy Reyes, aka Glasses, the top associate of the drug lord who's safe Ricky just cracked. Glasses has his own story to tell and soon a very interesting tale is weaved that will connect him and Ricky in ways that ended up being very surprising and in several instances quite suspenseful. The author's style certainly shines with his use of language and dialect for both of these characters.
On paper, this is the perfect story for me and I found the author's writing to be so wonderfully authentic. The dialogue was perfect and I really felt the characters were unique and multi-dimensional. Where it started to go downhill for me is the repetitive number of times Ghost was driving in a car and playing various songs on the mix-tape that his past girlfriend, Rose (she had died), had made for him. As narrator, he would then reminesce about times together (in detail) and repeat over and over how much she meant to him. I got it, I really did but by about 65% I'd heard enough because what that effectively did was break up the pace of the story and cause me to become bored which isn't at all how I felt starting out and during the safe cracking scenes. Couple this with an ending that I just don't feel made sense for what we knew of the characters and I was left slightly disconnected.
For some reason I'm finding this book hard to review. On the one hand, there is so much I liked about it and up until about 60%, I felt it was ticking along quite nicely. I loved that it started off with a safecracking scene and felt that until that point I was really invested in the story. After that, however, Â it started to slip for me and by the end I feel like I had disconnected from the story just a little which is very strange considering how much I started off liking it.
The story starts off action packed as we are introduced to Ricky, aka Ghost, a safecracker who freelances for the DEA. He's been called to a house of the DEA's most recent drug bust and then left alone (yes alone!) to open the safe with instructions to call the DEA agent in charge after he gets it open. Here's what's so interesting about this scene....we learn from Ricky's first person narration that in his past he was an addict and criminal who did some very bad things but for the past several years he's tried to do right and now has a plan to really help some people who need it. His plan involves taking the cash in that safe and using it to help others in need.  And with this current safe, he hits the jackpot. Time is ticking though because the safe he has just cracked and the money he has stolen belongs to one of the biggest drug lords in LA and you just know things aren't going to go well when he finds out his money is gone.
Here is where the story alternates narration and we then meet Rudy Reyes, aka Glasses, the top associate of the drug lord who's safe Ricky just cracked. Glasses has his own story to tell and soon a very interesting tale is weaved that will connect him and Ricky in ways that ended up being very surprising and in several instances quite suspenseful. The author's style certainly shines with his use of language and dialect for both of these characters.
On paper, this is the perfect story for me and I found the author's writing to be so wonderfully authentic. The dialogue was perfect and I really felt the characters were unique and multi-dimensional. Where it started to go downhill for me is the repetitive number of times Ghost was driving in a car and playing various songs on the mix-tape that his past girlfriend, Rose (she had died), had made for him. As narrator, he would then reminesce about times together (in detail) and repeat over and over how much she meant to him. I got it, I really did but by about 65% I'd heard enough because what that effectively did was break up the pace of the story and cause me to become bored which isn't at all how I felt starting out and during the safe cracking scenes. Couple this with an ending that I just don't feel made sense for what we knew of the characters and I was left slightly disconnected.