jefecarpenter's review
2.0
This is well-written in some ways, but the characters are bottom-feeders, taking us on a tour of the destitution of our culture that even stylish, seemingly interesting people are engaged in. It's maybe valuable as an anthropological study of the decline and fall of our civilization, but it's too depressing to read as entertainment.
zzzrevel's review against another edition
3.0
This is a decent enough read, but nothing great
or exciting.
I did like the climactic scene ('the exchange'
without spoiling anything) because there was
a couple of characters there that I did not see
coming.
Otherwise a bittersweet ending.
or exciting.
I did like the climactic scene ('the exchange'
without spoiling anything) because there was
a couple of characters there that I did not see
coming.
Otherwise a bittersweet ending.
maedo's review against another edition
4.0
Working at a bookshop after college, I was expected to be able to recommend a book for any taste. The hardest sort of book for me to recommend to customers was anything in the thriller genre. Classic noir/pulp/detective novels were always a little too sanitized to capture my interest, and current thrillers that I've tried tend to suffer from cardboard characters and cliched dialogue.
I wish that I had known about Richard Lange when I was a bookseller, because without question, he would be my go-to recommendation. If you like crime novels about cons, heists, and chases as opposed to whodunits, you have got to read his books. I was genuinely excited to be offered a galley of this latest in exchange for review by Mulholland Books (and I was glad to receive it on the eve of a weekend where I had nothing planned, because I expected to be lost in it).
As it turns out, The Smack is just as totally engrossing as Angel Baby, and has the unsparing, realistically unsentimental worldview that I was stunned by in Sweet Nothing. Lange continues to impress as a writer who can convey that world of tacky superficial wealth masking day-to-day sadness and just getting by that belongs to gamblers by profession and conmen (if you've been to Las Vegas or Atlantic City, you know exactly the vibe I'm talking about) in a way that seems true, not cheesy. The Smack's antihero Rowan Petty, who spends his days scamming people on Airbnb in between bigger jobs, and his unlikely prostitute girlfriend Tinafey, seem like real people; they could easily have become cartoons in the hands of lesser writers. It helps that Lange has a great ear for dialogue and his prose is so good as to be transparent.
I don't want to say too much about the plot, because 1.) frankly, you can read the book's description for that, and 2.) I don't want to spoil the story's turns. Needless to say, there are a few punch to the gut moments (see what I said above about "unsparing, realistically unsentimental worldview"). There is no guarantee anyone is going to make it out alive by some deus ex machina. True to the world of the conman, there is no guarantee that someone else isn't running a double con.
I gave this four stars, but it's a high four stars, leaning closer to five than four. I will read anything Lange writes in the future. He is criminally underrated.
I wish that I had known about Richard Lange when I was a bookseller, because without question, he would be my go-to recommendation. If you like crime novels about cons, heists, and chases as opposed to whodunits, you have got to read his books. I was genuinely excited to be offered a galley of this latest in exchange for review by Mulholland Books (and I was glad to receive it on the eve of a weekend where I had nothing planned, because I expected to be lost in it).
As it turns out, The Smack is just as totally engrossing as Angel Baby, and has the unsparing, realistically unsentimental worldview that I was stunned by in Sweet Nothing. Lange continues to impress as a writer who can convey that world of tacky superficial wealth masking day-to-day sadness and just getting by that belongs to gamblers by profession and conmen (if you've been to Las Vegas or Atlantic City, you know exactly the vibe I'm talking about) in a way that seems true, not cheesy. The Smack's antihero Rowan Petty, who spends his days scamming people on Airbnb in between bigger jobs, and his unlikely prostitute girlfriend Tinafey, seem like real people; they could easily have become cartoons in the hands of lesser writers. It helps that Lange has a great ear for dialogue and his prose is so good as to be transparent.
I don't want to say too much about the plot, because 1.) frankly, you can read the book's description for that, and 2.) I don't want to spoil the story's turns. Needless to say, there are a few punch to the gut moments (see what I said above about "unsparing, realistically unsentimental worldview"). There is no guarantee anyone is going to make it out alive by some deus ex machina. True to the world of the conman, there is no guarantee that someone else isn't running a double con.
I gave this four stars, but it's a high four stars, leaning closer to five than four. I will read anything Lange writes in the future. He is criminally underrated.
rosseroo's review
4.0
I'd previously read some of Lange's short stories about down-and-out no hopers working dead-end jobs in and around LA, and thought that his style might work better in a novel, and so I picked this up. It's a very well-executed crime story about a middle-aged grifter down to his last $5,000 when he hears a tall tale from an old family friend about a $2 million score.
Readers who require a "likable" protagonist are unlikely to enjoy Rowan Petty, who has a kind of personal code he follows, but is a scam artist with no real human connections. Hence a ridiculous plot contrivance that makes his seeking out the $2 million plausible and worth our rooting for. Along the way he teams up with a hooker who doesn't exactly have a heart of gold, but she's not too far away from that trope and serves as another narrative mechanism for balancing Petty's character.
The story revolves around Petty trying to find the money in East LA and get it into his hands safely. That doesn't work out so well, because naturally there are other folks after the money, and they don't mind a few dead bodies along the way. There's a whole moderately cheesy subplot about Petty's estranged daughter, but at the heart of the book is a very tightly plotted crime story. There's not really any humor to it, and I could see a very self-serious director like Michael Mann making a fine movie out of it.
Readers who require a "likable" protagonist are unlikely to enjoy Rowan Petty, who has a kind of personal code he follows, but is a scam artist with no real human connections. Hence a ridiculous plot contrivance that makes his seeking out the $2 million plausible and worth our rooting for. Along the way he teams up with a hooker who doesn't exactly have a heart of gold, but she's not too far away from that trope and serves as another narrative mechanism for balancing Petty's character.
The story revolves around Petty trying to find the money in East LA and get it into his hands safely. That doesn't work out so well, because naturally there are other folks after the money, and they don't mind a few dead bodies along the way. There's a whole moderately cheesy subplot about Petty's estranged daughter, but at the heart of the book is a very tightly plotted crime story. There's not really any humor to it, and I could see a very self-serious director like Michael Mann making a fine movie out of it.
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