8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An exciting chase..., 9 April 2006
By A Customer
This review is from: Smoked (Hardcover)
This book is great read. The characters are sassy, raw and gritty and the author makes them real. The author grabs you right from the beginning by introducing you to a killer for hire and by detailing the near rape of one of the main characters (I won't say more). Needless to say, this book is not for children or the faint of heart. The chase scenes are exciting and I found myself staying up late to finish the book (I wanted to see how it ended). Enjoy!
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A page turner, 25 May 2006
This review is from: Smoked (Hardcover)
An exciting book!
Straightforward to read, interesting characters, racey plot twists, and a good few laughs.
It's one of the few books that I've read that effectively communicates the thrill of a car chace!
A great debut, more of these please.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An Elmore Leonard-Type Look at "Retiring" from the Mob, 25 Jun 2007
Is there life outside the Mob without going into a witness protection program? Smoked makes the case for criminals being able to reform at least to the extent of foregoing crime (except to escape Mob killers) in favor of retirement with beautiful young women. As you can see the book's theme is really about fantasy: confronting and overcoming almost demonic killers, being able to retire young, enjoying an uncomplicated love life, and having freedom to live as you like. Those in favor of some escapist fiction will feel rewarded by Smoked.
What makes the book rise above the average is its focus on the foolishness and foibles of bad guys, a quality that will remind you of Elmore Leonard's stories about stupid crooks in Detroit. The main twist here is that the criminals are either stone killers or physically developed people who love using their size and strength against others.
On the anti-hero side, you have a few surprises too. James "Smoke" Duggan (born Wally O'Malley) is sixtyish and a cripple who needs a cane. He uses his brains and bomb-making abilities to offset his physical limitations. Smoke's twenty-five-year-old girl friend, Lola Bell, makes up for his lack of physical toughness with her martial arts which are honed to prevent a repetition of being raped as a teenager. Both are secretive . . . which accounts for why Smoke doesn't know that she almost suffered a recurrence during a "modeling" audition . . . and why Lola doesn't know that Smoke used to work for the Mob and helped kill dozens on a plane.
Into their path come the stone-cold killer, Denny Cruz, and two nasty assistants, Moss and Fingers, after Smoke is spotted and photographed on a Portland, Maine street. The Mob hunters find that life isn't quite what they expected as they trail the $2.5 million they are ordered to retrieve from Smoke.
What follows is filled with action and irony as the mobsters and rapists find that their tasks are vastly more difficult than expected.
You'll have to suspend belief quite a lot towards the end of the book. That's the book's weakness.
But if you enjoy seeing the hare run the foxes to ground, you'll enjoy Smoked.
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