Every day above ground

It sounds like a setup from a 1940s movie. Van Shaw, the rough-and-tumble ex-Ranger narrator making his third appearance in a Hamilton thriller, meets a dying ex-con with an enticing proposition. The sick man knew a fellow in prison who babbled about millions of dollars in gold in a hidden safe. Would Van, who mastered safecracking under the tutelage of his raffish relatives, contribute his skills in return for a share? Darn right he would, and that leads to a delightful, sweaty-palmed account of a heist gone wrong. It was a trap. And here the narrator spins an examination of the people behind this complex scam. They're mean, they're violent, and they're not as interesting as the game they've set in motion. When the novel stays with in-your-face action a fistfight, a chase, a shootout or three, plus an art heist it's wonderful. That may be enough for most readers, though they should be ready for an overpopulated, slow-moving narrative enlivened at times by the author's way with words bruises are the shade of dying violets. --Crinklaw, Don Copyright 2017 Booklist

Hamilton's outstanding third Van Shaw novel (after 2016's Hard Cold Winter) fulfills the promise of the earlier entries. Shaw, a former Army ranger, is trying to stay on the right side of the law as he struggles to make ends meet with whatever part-time work he can get. He hopes that he can manage to rebuild the Seattle home he recently inherited from his thief grandfather, Donovan "Dono" Shaw, so when Mickey O'Hasson, an old criminal colleague of Dono's, offers him a part of a score, Shaw is naturally tempted. Mickey has just been released from prison, where he met an inmate who claimed to have worked for Karl Ekby, the most powerful heroin dealer in L.A., and invested his proceeds in gold, which he stored in a safe in the floor of his Seattle office. Shaw agrees to help Mickey break into the safe, but the burglary goes south, leaving Shaw scrambling to find out why they were apparently set up. The suspenseful, fast-moving plot is a good match for the empathetic, nuanced lead. Agent: Lisa Erbach Vance, Aaron Priest Literary Agency. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.