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A review by ashwaar
Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks by Patrick Radden Keefe
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
4.0
I have greatly enjoyed Keefe's previous books, Say Nothing and Empire of Pain, but I was also intimidated at times. Both are grand, shocking and eventful books covering crucial and compelling topics. However, Rogues felt just a little bit more accessible in comparison.
So to start with, this book is so easy to read compared to the others. You can take your time getting through it without forgetting what has happened in the previous pages. It also gives you so many interesting stories and anecdotes to tell other people. I relayed every chapter to my boyfriend after I read it because of how weird and interesting the stories were. My favourites were The Hunt for El Chapo, Winning, and The Worst of the Worst (in case you were wondering).
However, so many of these stories didn't have much of an ending. I felt a bit unsatisfied when I finished one of them, as although the crux of the story is interesting and compelling, these people and their stories and repercussions are never-ending. The story of the Jefferson wines, although fascinating, didn't end with anything more than a warning that the majority of highly collectable wines may be fakes, and the chapter on Falciani, who stole data from the Swiss banks, was open-ended. We don't really get any answers to the questions that crop up when we start each chapter.
But I understand these stories can rarely be tied up with a neat little bow. Crime is often confusing and complex, with different actors saying different things about their roles in the scheme. The lack of a finale doesn't take away from the stories in any way, it leaves the reader to contemplate the messiness of our modern world and the different ways we tell our stories.
Read more on Wordpress at Bookmarked by Ash: https://book990337086.wordpress.com/
So to start with, this book is so easy to read compared to the others. You can take your time getting through it without forgetting what has happened in the previous pages. It also gives you so many interesting stories and anecdotes to tell other people. I relayed every chapter to my boyfriend after I read it because of how weird and interesting the stories were. My favourites were The Hunt for El Chapo, Winning, and The Worst of the Worst (in case you were wondering).
However, so many of these stories didn't have much of an ending. I felt a bit unsatisfied when I finished one of them, as although the crux of the story is interesting and compelling, these people and their stories and repercussions are never-ending. The story of the Jefferson wines, although fascinating, didn't end with anything more than a warning that the majority of highly collectable wines may be fakes, and the chapter on Falciani, who stole data from the Swiss banks, was open-ended. We don't really get any answers to the questions that crop up when we start each chapter.
But I understand these stories can rarely be tied up with a neat little bow. Crime is often confusing and complex, with different actors saying different things about their roles in the scheme. The lack of a finale doesn't take away from the stories in any way, it leaves the reader to contemplate the messiness of our modern world and the different ways we tell our stories.
Read more on Wordpress at Bookmarked by Ash: https://book990337086.wordpress.com/
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Suicide, and Mass/school shootings