A review by rosseroo
The Blade Itself by Marcus Sakey
2.0
Despite the hefty praise from established authors, this debut Chicago crime thriller felt entirely run-of-the-mill to me. It opens with a scene involving two friends from an Irish neighborhood who are interrupted in act of robbing a pawnbrokers. Someone is killed, and Danny gets away, while Evan goes to prison for twelve years. Flash-forward seven years, and Danny is living a straight life as a construction project managers, and Evan is just out of prison. It comes as no surprise that he's also of the opinion that Danny owes him, and that payback comes in the form of partnering up for a big score.
The characters are all pretty standard fare -- there's Danny's old friend from the neighborhood, there's Danny's wife who is awesome in every way but will walk out if he gets back into crime, there's a floozy with a heart and brain, etc... One of the book's big themes is about the nobility of work, and the differences between entitled jerks and those who came up with nothing. But it's all pretty rote and obvious. Indeed, almost every twist and turn of the plot is obvious, and while the book isn't bad per se, it's also not particularly original or interesting.
The characters are all pretty standard fare -- there's Danny's old friend from the neighborhood, there's Danny's wife who is awesome in every way but will walk out if he gets back into crime, there's a floozy with a heart and brain, etc... One of the book's big themes is about the nobility of work, and the differences between entitled jerks and those who came up with nothing. But it's all pretty rote and obvious. Indeed, almost every twist and turn of the plot is obvious, and while the book isn't bad per se, it's also not particularly original or interesting.