LA's dark underbelly come to life. This book has it all, Gangsters, drugs, Cops and more. A story of redemption written in two first person perspectives. Characters were would and relatable. Enjoyed from start to finish.

Wow I loved tis book, the story, the style, and the pacing. It is a great "2G", Glasses and Ghost. 48 hours of a Robin Hood styled tale. Enjoy!

Published by MCD/Farrar, Straus & Giroux on August 1, 2017

Like many good crime novels, Safe is about moral dilemmas. The story features two sympathetic characters, both skating between the right and the wrong side of the law, who steadily move toward a confrontation with each other while trying to do decide whether and how to do something decent with their lives, although for much different reasons.

A locksmith whose nickname is Ghost helps the DEA break into LA drug houses and opens any safes they find on the premises. Ghost has a need for money, although not for his own benefit, and decides that helping himself to cash in a safe will solve the problem. Of course, he trades one problem for another.

As a former addict and gang banger, Ghost has ample reason to regret much of his life. Thanks to the death of a woman named Rose, a woman who helped him find a reason to live before she died, Ghost has been living in pain for a long time. But a bad past has given him a good heart, and Ghost wants to make amends before he dies. Stealing from drug dealers (or, as the DEA might see it, stealing from the DEA) gives him the opportunity to do that. Ghost isn’t exactly Robin Hood but in his state of redemption, he’s a good, likable guy who is taking risks because he doesn’t have much to lose. He's kind of a Robin Hood from the the Hood.

The other key character, whose nickname is Glasses, works for a major drug dealer. His tendency toward decency is not so much a moral choice as an aversion to the violent methods his drug boss employs. But the novel’s strongest point is that there are different ways of being honorable, different paths to being good or bad, and life just isn’t as black and white for most people as the narrowest minds want it to be.

Ghost and Glasses both care about the people in their lives, which sets them apart from the novel’s more sociopathic characters. But none of the characters are truly evil — even the ones who do evil deeds live by a code that hints at moral principles — and that compassionate understanding of people whose lives have been shaped by unfortunate influences is one of the things I like about Safe.

Quite a bit of Safe (particularly when narrated by Glasses) is written in street prose, eloquent and creative in its own way. The plot is engaging but the depth of the characters sets Safe apart from most crime novels. Some aspects of the novel (including the disease that motivates Ghost to make the choices that drive the story) might be a little too convenient, but that didn’t stop me from appreciating the novel’s poignant moments. And the ending is such a gut punch that I would recommend the novel for the last few pages alone.

RECOMMENDED

Tough, violent, tender and lyrically- this novel of crime and a theft and its aftermath heralds the arrival of a tough new crime writer. Should be Gattis' break out book

For some reason I'm finding this book hard to review. On the one hand, there is so much I liked about it and up until about 60% I felt it was in solid 4 star rating territory. After that point, it started to slip for me and by the end I feel like I had disconnected from the story which is very strange considering how much I started off liking it.

The story starts off action packed as we are introduced to Ricky, AKA Ghost, a safecracker who freelances for the DEA. He's been called to a house of the DEA's most recent drug bust and then left alone (yes alone!) to open the safe with instructions to call the DEA agent in charge after he gets it open. Here's what's so interesting about this scene....we learn from Ricky's first person narration that in his past he was an addict and criminal who did some very bad things but for the past several years he's tried to do right and now has a plan to really help some people who need it. His plan involves taking the cash in that safe and using it to help others in need.  And with this current safe, hits the jackpot. Time is ticking though because the safe he has just cracked and the money he has stolen belongs to one of the biggest drug lords in LA and you just know things aren't going to go well when he finds out his money is gone.

Here is where the story alternates narration and we then meet Rudy Reyes, AKA Glasses, the top associate of the drug lord who's safe Ricky just cracked. Glasses has his own story to tell and soon a very interesting tale is weaved that will connect him and Ricky in ways that ended up being very surprising and in several instances quite suspenseful.

On paper, this is the perfect story for me and I found the author's writing to be so wonderfully authentic. The dialogue was perfect and I really felt the characters were unique and multi-dimensional. Where it started to go downhill for me is the repetitive number of times Ghost was driving in a car and playing various songs on the mix-tape that his past girlfriend, Rose (she had died), had made for him. As narrator, he would then reminesce about times together (in detail) and repeat over and over how much she meant to him. I got it, I really did but by about 65% I'd heard enough because what that effectively did was break up the pace of the story and cause me to become bored which isn't at all how I felt starting out. Couple this with an ending that I just don't feel made sense for what we knew of the characters and I was left disconnected.

Every now and then, you read a book that just resonates with you and touches you deeply. This is one of those books. A story about growing up on the mean streets of Los Angeles and one man's redemption and wanting to leave a legacy of hope for others because the one he loved did that for him. Heavy stuff.
I don't have the words to express how good this is. It is just magnificent and powerful.