Author: Roger Hobbs
Series: Jack White 1
Genres: Thriller, Crime, Mystery
Publisher: Corgi Books
Release: July 17th 2014
Source: ebook
Pages: 400
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BLURB: I make things disappear. It’s what I do. This time I'm tidying up the loose ends after a casino heist gone bad. The loose ends being a million cash. But I only have 48 hours, and there’s a guy out there who wants my head in a bag.
He'll have to find me first. They don’t call me the Ghostman for nothing...
EXPECTATIONS: I just needed something different, something I knew nothing about, something no one recommended to me. I had no expectations, I just dove in, because it was there, available for picking up. Best. Decision. Ever. Well... Maybe not ever, okay.
THE WORLD: USA underworld, nameless, faceless people. They rob places in flashy masks, for after the robbery that's all you can describe, not the height, not the build, no, just the stupid clown mask. And then, out of the costume, they become one of us, a stranger you'd not look twice at. But when heists go south, and loose ends need disappearing, one can only hope to have a contact with a ghostman. A ghostman is someone known for what they do, but other than that - not known at all. And here we get to see the world from one of their eyes.
CHARACTERS: Our protagonist no longer has a name. But right now we can call him Jack. Because Jack is the last name his former evil genius mastermind of an employer remembers him by. For, you see, back in the day, Jack took up a job from this man, a job that would've made him and some of his friends richer by a couple millions each. But Jack made a mistake and they all paid. Some with money, others with their lives. Jack owed more, and today he needs to pay one last time. During this he becomes one person, then another, and a third if need be. The only thing that doesn't change is his inner world. And there he's a passionate criminal, in it for the game, for the thrill, and because it's interesting.
ROMANCE: There's no romance here, other than the dead kind that didn't happen. And an empty romance that could have happened, but didn't. His former partner in crime has disappeared after she thought him everything she knew (well, maybe not everything, since they found him, but not her), and after that heist went down. He obviously still harbors feelings for her. And then there's a very persistent FBI agent. She's very good at what she does. Including calculated risks, one of them being a deal with a ghostman. In neither case anything happened though!
GOOD: The details Jack provides of his job, his professionalism and stress on this sort of honor among thieves makes it one of those books that push you to the edge of the chair. The detective nuance of it was great too, kept me wondering long and hard of why, who, and why again, up until Jack tangled everything so hard, I couldn't believe the outcome. The bastard's brilliant. And not even boasting about it.
BAD: At times it got so complex I had to turn some pages back and re-read, just to catch the track of thought in my own head. Not sure if it's bad though.
OVERALL: This is a very great crime detective/thriller from a different point of view. Just think about it: a heist went down because someone either that dumb or that powerful decided to break the unspoken honor code, and attack another criminal organisation. If other gangs saw this as a threat, they'd destroy them in union, hence the wonder: power of crazy? The stolen goods? Money, that will become useless in 48 hours, worth less than the paper they're printed on, so why steal it in the first place? And yet it all makes so much sense when you start digging into it! I loved it.
What do you think about GHOSTMAN
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