Love and Theft

The characters are caricatures, and the writing is full of cliches, but the plot is engaging enough so that its worth getting to the end. The protagonist is a good soul who only steals from those who are insured, and while there are guns, it seems that bystanders and jewelry store guards never get shot. Sort of a Robinhood, but in this case, Robin and his merry thieves keep the money for themselves. He meets a woman and wants to retire from his life of crime. And then an opportunity comes up. You figure OK, hes going to go on one last job, and something interesting will happen, good or bad. And indeed, something interesting does happen – a couple of somethings. But to make it happen, the hero and his woman have to step out of character in, to use a cliche, a hail of bullets, so unless you suspend your disbelief, the end seems too far beyond improbable. But OK, that\’s typical of the genre. It might still make a good movie script, but the prose makes it a mediocre crime novel. Here\’s an example: One of the characters is the guest of a woman associated with a fabulously wealthy member of Mexican drug cartel. He\’s apparently impressed by what money can buy, even though he\’s made millions as a thief: \”The wine foams into the glasses — hand-blown, paper-thin stemware so light that Alex feels he\’s holding only liquid.\” Bleah.

Like others, the opening chapters that described a daring jewelry store heist in Las Vegas had me excited to read the rest of the book. But then it just spiraled downward from there, becoming trite and boring. So much unnecessary and boring backstory. Character headhopping within the same chapter. Author relying on titillating scenes of drug use, decadent wealth or international locales rather than investing his time in developing characters we really care about. I very rarely stop reading a novel halfway through, but this one I had to. It\’s not easy writing genre fiction – writers have to really push themselves to create something new and surprising. I hope Mr. Parish will try again, investing more effort in creating charismatic, compelling characters.

Starts out as a heist story in a Las Vegas casino jewelry store, moves on to a budding romance between 2 people who might have met once, then proceeds at high speed to Tulum, gets nasty and gritty, and on to Spain, where the twists and turns get breathless. A hugely enjoyable caper novel in the tradition of Donald Westlake and Dennis Lehane, with a dash of Elmore Leonard and Michael Connelly,

A well-written thriller is a pleasure to read. Lets face it, some thrillers are like cartoons with stick-figure characters. This one has depth, a couple of interesting female characters, exotic locales. But dont worry, stuff goes bang.

Somewhere I read a positive review, and didn\’t check to see if the reviewer had the same family name. No character development, ridiculously bad dialog. This is very poor stuff. There WAS a story line, not quite strong enough to be called a plot. Vocabulary isn\’t so bad, but may be too advanced for the 5th graders that might like the attempt at a story.

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