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A review by rosseroo
Ghostman by Roger Hobbs
5.0
If you like heist movies/stories or fast-paced crime thrillers, then pick this up immediately. The titular "Ghostman" is a career criminal in his mid-30s who we know as "Jack." We meet him as he's holed up in a nondescript apartment, translating one of the classics from the original Latin or Greek into English -- which is his one and only pastime when he's not on a job. Jack's specialty is to be able to transform both his appearance and personality into dramatically different people, a kind of master method actor of the criminal set, with an endless supply of false identities. In addition to being a master ghostman, Jack is very good at tracking down missing things and people -- again, a kind of master private eye working for the other side of the law.
He receives a phone call from someone who shouldn't know his number, requesting/ordering a meeting. It's his old friend/boss Marcus, who would like to kill him, but needs his particular skills immediately. Marcus set up a casino heist in Atlantic City that went haywire -- as the reader is shown in vivid detail -- and now the surviving heister and $1.2 million have gone missing, and if the money can't be recovered within 48 hours, it'll auto-destruct. Despite the seeming impossibility of the ticking clock and task, Jack can't really turn Marcus down, since he was at fault for the failure of big heist Marcus set up in Kuala Lumpur five years earlier.
And we're off on a rollicking ride of a story, as Jack has to battle the ticking clock, as well as the attentions of both an FBI agent who seems to be on to him and the minions of an Atlantic City crime boss who is not pleased to have Jack on his turf. Interwoven with this is Jack's retelling of the Malaysian job and how that all went wrong. Aside from the excellent pacing and twists and turns of the plotting, what really makes the book shine is the level of detail and insider knowledge of the underworld of heists and their planning, cons, false identities, and so much more. I have no idea to what extent the details are true, but the book reads as if the author spent years talking to real criminals and police to learn the tricks of the trade and language used -- which makes it all the more impressive that this is a debut from a 21-year-old.
I suppose some readers may find Jack to be an unsatisfying protagonist, in that he's a total cipher. But the reason to read this book is for the expert pacing, plot twists, and behind-the-scenes details. I read a lot of crime books, and this is probably the best thing I've read in the last year or two -- it is unputdownable.
He receives a phone call from someone who shouldn't know his number, requesting/ordering a meeting. It's his old friend/boss Marcus, who would like to kill him, but needs his particular skills immediately. Marcus set up a casino heist in Atlantic City that went haywire -- as the reader is shown in vivid detail -- and now the surviving heister and $1.2 million have gone missing, and if the money can't be recovered within 48 hours, it'll auto-destruct. Despite the seeming impossibility of the ticking clock and task, Jack can't really turn Marcus down, since he was at fault for the failure of big heist Marcus set up in Kuala Lumpur five years earlier.
And we're off on a rollicking ride of a story, as Jack has to battle the ticking clock, as well as the attentions of both an FBI agent who seems to be on to him and the minions of an Atlantic City crime boss who is not pleased to have Jack on his turf. Interwoven with this is Jack's retelling of the Malaysian job and how that all went wrong. Aside from the excellent pacing and twists and turns of the plotting, what really makes the book shine is the level of detail and insider knowledge of the underworld of heists and their planning, cons, false identities, and so much more. I have no idea to what extent the details are true, but the book reads as if the author spent years talking to real criminals and police to learn the tricks of the trade and language used -- which makes it all the more impressive that this is a debut from a 21-year-old.
I suppose some readers may find Jack to be an unsatisfying protagonist, in that he's a total cipher. But the reason to read this book is for the expert pacing, plot twists, and behind-the-scenes details. I read a lot of crime books, and this is probably the best thing I've read in the last year or two -- it is unputdownable.