Review by New York Times Review
Honestly, how hard can it be to write a likable hooker? (Give her a brutish ex-husband, have some thug hold her for ransom, and take her shopping on Rodeo Drive.) But it takes real talent to write a coyote with personality. Petty is up in the Hollywood Hills, waiting for a ride, when he sees two coyotes trotting down the middle of the road, "one of them shooting him a hateful yellow glare" as it ambles past. To add insult to injury, it smirks at him when he tries to shoo it away. Even inanimate objects come to life in Lange's world: "Tumbleweeds bounded across the road, flashing in the headlights like fleeing animals." The caper plot is tidier (and more violent) than Lange's usual free-form efforts, with a solid back story about Army buddies conniving to retrieve the cash they made from stolen goods ("everything from computers and printers to microwaves and washing machines") in Afghanistan. The book is most fun, though, when it focuses on Petty's clever ruses to separate the rubes from their life's savings. Through trial and error, the con man has learned that a yellow safety vest, a baseball cap and a clipboard constitute an all-purpose disguise for real estate scams. And the telephone is his friend when he just wants to rustle up a few bucks for breakfast. Lange's bread and butter are his quick studies of colorful characters, many of whom die here in unpleasant ways. So it's only fitting when those who are still alive at the end raise their glasses on New Year's Eve in a toast "to the lucky and the unlucky, the swindlers and the swindled, the living and the dead." ?? ace atkins and his devoted readers, Tibbehah County, Miss., is no less real than Yoknapatawpha County was to Laulkner and his followers. So the first thing you do with THE FALLEN (Putnam, $27) is take a quick head count to make sure all your favorite characters are still standing. Sheriff Quinn Colson is back in office and oblivious to the adulation of his deputy, Lillie Virgil. Dances are still held at Sammy Hagar's Red Rocker Bar and Grill, gossip still traded at the Lillin' Station diner. And fear not, Lannie Hathcock is still doing land-office business at Vienna's Place (formerly known as the Booby Trap and still the "best strip club south of Memphis"), where happy hour dances are still a reasonable $20 per lap. Tibbehah has been an outlaw haven since bootlegging days, so it's a professional insult when out-of-town robbers steal $192,000 from the Pirst National Bank. But even that major crime is overshadowed when two local girls go missing and everyone fears the worst. What Atkins understands is that regional mysteries can go only so far when updating local crime patterns. It's O.K. to rob the town bank, but you can't burn it to the ground. MEDIEVAL VENICE SPREADS out her treasures for religious pilgrims in S. D. Sykes's CITY OF MASKS (Pegasus Crime, $25.95) - not the aesthetic riches of La Serenissima or the material wealth of her Doges, but the kind of treasure that buys a place in the afterlife. If they hustle, pilgrims can amass heaps of indulgences by praying at iconic shrines containing "the feet of Mary the Egyptian, the ear of St. Paul the Apostle and the molar of Goliath." Oswald de Lacy, Lord Somershill of Kent and the amiable amateur sleuth in this series, has not come to the city for the shrines. De Lacy is a gambler, and Venice has some of the most infamous dens of iniquity in Europe. But once he's lost his purse, there's no sport left but to solve the murder of Enrico Bearpark, grandson of a great Venice patriarch who suspects the boy was killed by his male lover. "A murderer will hang in this city," the old man informs de Lacy, "but a sodomite is always burned." Needless to say, this investigation is an extremely sensitive one, even for a dab hand like de Lacy. Michael connelly introduces a new sleuth in the late show (Little, Brown, $28), a detective named Renée Ballard who can almost, if not quite, lift her own weight among the tough guys in the Los Angeles Police Department. Most nights are slow on the late shift, with Ballard looking for wandering Alzheimer's patients and signing off on suicides. But this new cop has a personal mission to find her late partner's killer without undermining the last case they worked together, one that she rightly calls "big evil." Worse, she's being pilloried in the press, thanks to false information being leaked by someone at her own station. There's nothing wrong with Ballard's case or her serious work habits. It's just that she doesn't seem to be having as much fun as all the guys. ? Marilyn STASIO has covered crime fiction for the Book Review since 1988. Her column appears twice a month.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [July 30, 2017]
Review by Booklist Review
Con artist Rowan Petty has endured a long run of bad luck. Then, on a snowy Thanksgiving Day in Reno, two things happen: Rowan meets an old friend, who tells him about $2 million in cash smuggled out of Afghanistan, cash that may now be languishing in Los Angeles, prime for the pickings. The same night, Rowan meets a prostitute and feels a connection (not just the kind she's selling). Our melancholy con man initially says no to both offers, then changes his mind, first about hooking up with Tinafey (like that white girl on TV but one word), then about L.A. It all goes swimmingly at first, with con man and working girl impersonating La La Land tourists, until the clouds roll in. Encounters with the smugglers result in dead bodies, and gradually Rowan realizes that he's on the wrong end of a multilevel con. With all the dexterity of Thomas Perry, Lange walks the thin line between caper novel and blood-splattered noir, leading up to a rip-roaring finale. This fine piece of tragicomic crime fiction sets up like a stand-alone, but we'd sure like to see more of Rowan and Tinafey.--Ott, Bill Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Career con artist Rowan Petty has run out of luck in this gritty, poignant crime novel from Hammett Prize-winner Lange (Angel Baby). Living out of a hotel in Reno, Nev., Petty is down to his last five grand and trying to stay afloat working various phone scams for chump change. When an older criminal colleague approaches Petty with a story he heard in prison about $2 million in stolen army money smuggled out of Afghanistan into L.A., Petty is just desperate enough to take the bait. Accompanied by a down-on-her-luck prostitute who calls herself Tinafey, Petty heads to California. Things get complicated and violent quickly, as Petty discovers that he isn't the only one looking for the stolen cash. Meanwhile, he makes contact with his estranged daughter, whose life has taken a difficult turn. Lange is a master at writing about characters on the margins of society and humanizing outcasts and misfits, and he manages to capture the surreal culture of Los Angeles in all its contradictory glory. Agent: Henry Dunow, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner Literary Agency. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Professional con man Rowan Petty is at the end of the line: down to his last five grand in Reno, NV, calling rubes on Thanksgiving about a real estate scam for ten percent of the take. Not even a rendezvous with his favorite hooker Tinafey ("Like that white lady on TV, but all one word") goes right. Then a blast from the past meets Petty with a rumor of a score that could mean early retirement, something about $2 million smuggled out of Afghanistan currently being stored in a wounded vet's Los Angeles apartment. Petty knows he might be getting played, but the lure-of the money, of the hunt, of spending quality time with Tinafey-is too tempting to ignore. Plus he'll get to see his estranged daughter Sam, whose medical condition quickly gives him a far more urgent reason to find the money. Verdict Like his protagonist, Dashiell Hammett Award winner Lange (Angel Baby) knows how to reel in his audience with a seductive story and plenty of misdirection. There's nothing criminal, however, about this rollicking, diamond-cut thriller shot through with elegance and heart.-Michael Pucci, South Orange P.L., NJ © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Down-on-his-luck grifter Rowan Petty is talked into taking part in an iffy get-rich scheme by Dandy Don, an ex-con in Reno, only to be set up for a fall.A crew of Afghanistan soldiers in cahoots with Afghan truckers has siphoned $2 million in ghost payments and kickbacks to Los Angeles, where it has been hidden by Tony, a wounded young veteran. Don promises Petty a big chunk of the cash if he can put his hands on it. Posing as a plumber, Petty searches the kid's apartment for a possible hiding place. An armed thug sent by Don bursts in demanding the money and is shot dead by Tony, who is so rattled by the thought of going to prison that he offers Petty a share of the $2 million if he takes care of the body. Petty devises a scam to abscond with all the money. Standing in his way is Diaz, the coldblooded vet behind the original theft, who is back in the U.S. Petty's situation is further complicated by two women: Tinafey, a smart and sassy hooker he falls for, and his long-estranged 21-year-old daughter, Samantha, who is diagnosed with a serious medical problem. As he did in the gritty Angel Baby (2013), Lange brings a fresh dimension to noir by making parenthood a central theme (Petty's father was a failed gambler). Petty's romance with Tinafey, who becomes his reluctant accomplice, can get a bit squishy. Like his protagonist, Lange "ha[s] a soft spot for hookers." But he is such a breezy, stylish writer that even scenes that in other hands would be filler, like those in which Petty indulges Tinafey's shopping and sightseeing desires, have something to reveal. In this breezy page-turner, Lange shows off his uncommon ability to combine toughness and tenderness. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
