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meandmypaperback's review
4.0
I had this book in the to-read pile for so long. And I just kept ignoring it and ignoring it, and now I am kicking myself that I didn't read it sooner. It was really good!
The Bitch isn't a reference to some bratty woman, or a female dog. Its a prison slang term for when an ex-con commits a third offence, and basically you are thrown into jail for a long time, no bail, etc. And basically this book is about that 'third offence'.
Jake Bishop has turned his life around. Married, about to have a child, working in a hair salon, trying to start his own his life as a robber is far behind him. Until an old cellmate comes back into his life. This cellmate is making him an offer that will put a lot of dollar bills on the table. Jake is adamant about saying no. Until he realizes all of his secrets he told his old cell-mate are coming back to bite him in the ass. Turns out Jake can't avoid helping out on this one.
The twists and turns and the whole way this book is written is fantastic. I kept swiping right to continue reading. I wanted to know exactly how it ended, in one sitting. I loved the surprises thrown it as well. When I thought I figured out whats was going to happen, (while some did) something else got thrown into the mix. I also thought it was going to end another way- which is a very good thing in a crime/mystery book.
Go buy/read this book.
The Bitch isn't a reference to some bratty woman, or a female dog. Its a prison slang term for when an ex-con commits a third offence, and basically you are thrown into jail for a long time, no bail, etc. And basically this book is about that 'third offence'.
Jake Bishop has turned his life around. Married, about to have a child, working in a hair salon, trying to start his own his life as a robber is far behind him. Until an old cellmate comes back into his life. This cellmate is making him an offer that will put a lot of dollar bills on the table. Jake is adamant about saying no. Until he realizes all of his secrets he told his old cell-mate are coming back to bite him in the ass. Turns out Jake can't avoid helping out on this one.
The twists and turns and the whole way this book is written is fantastic. I kept swiping right to continue reading. I wanted to know exactly how it ended, in one sitting. I loved the surprises thrown it as well. When I thought I figured out whats was going to happen, (while some did) something else got thrown into the mix. I also thought it was going to end another way- which is a very good thing in a crime/mystery book.
Go buy/read this book.
ianayris's review
5.0
As it says in the blurb, 'the bitch' is prison slang for an 'habitual' criminal. A criminal is deemed 'habitual' if he is incarcerated three times. Jake has been inside twice, so 'the bitch' hangs over him like a modern day Damoclean blade.
At the beginning of the book, we find Jake on the straight and narrow, working in a hair salon, married, his wife due to have a baby. All is rosy. Jake is determined to stay straight, for his wife and for his unborn child. He even has plans to open up his own salon.
But a phone call straight out the past turns Jake's whole world upside down, and he is thrust into a nightmare out of which there seems no escape, where every choice he makes leads him further into hell.
Never before have I read a book wherein the main character's spiralling into the darkness is so brilliantly chronicled. Just as we think Jake has conquered one obstacle, another one comes along to hit him like a truck. So close does the trinity of reader, author, and Jake become, at one point, I wasn't only thinking 'how is Jake going to get out of this', I was thinking 'how is Les Edgerton going to write himself out of this'. But a man of Edgerton's ability is a man to trust to the very end. You know he will write the truth, however much it hurts.
THE BITCH is an absolute belter of a read, right up there with the very best books I've read in the last ten years.
Brilliant.
At the beginning of the book, we find Jake on the straight and narrow, working in a hair salon, married, his wife due to have a baby. All is rosy. Jake is determined to stay straight, for his wife and for his unborn child. He even has plans to open up his own salon.
But a phone call straight out the past turns Jake's whole world upside down, and he is thrust into a nightmare out of which there seems no escape, where every choice he makes leads him further into hell.
Never before have I read a book wherein the main character's spiralling into the darkness is so brilliantly chronicled. Just as we think Jake has conquered one obstacle, another one comes along to hit him like a truck. So close does the trinity of reader, author, and Jake become, at one point, I wasn't only thinking 'how is Jake going to get out of this', I was thinking 'how is Les Edgerton going to write himself out of this'. But a man of Edgerton's ability is a man to trust to the very end. You know he will write the truth, however much it hurts.
THE BITCH is an absolute belter of a read, right up there with the very best books I've read in the last ten years.
Brilliant.
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