I really really liked this novel so many thanks for the ARC from the publisher via Netgalley.

I really wasn’t sure what to expect from this book and to be honest, I wasn’t expecting much. But seriously, wow, what a wild ride. Really creative and unique storyline, I don’t want to say too much because that’s part of the fun. I loved seeing how all of the very different pieces of the puzzle came together. The characters were fantastic, hilarious, lost, and heart breaking depending on who you’re talking about. The dominant theme that money really isn’t everything really resonates, at least with me it did. I was also a huge fan of the ending but I do wonder what happened to a certain unlikely pair.
Great quick read. I would highly recommend.

This one wasn’t quite what I was expecting, but not in a bad way. Truthfully, I’m not sure I knew what I was expecting, but I wasn’t expecting to laugh as much as I did. And once I was laughing, I was surprised to find such deep characters connected to something with so many laughs.

In any given chapter, you could find something humorous, intriguing, somber, erotic, brutal, or a mix of them all.

As I mentioned before, the characters were fantastic. Real. They’ve been living lives long before the story picks up, and this book is just a blip that happens along the way. Wonderfully flawed, and capable of making a mistake just as often as the rest of us.

The things explored among these characters were the most interesting parts. The ideals of marriage, work-life balance, relationships, material things, and of course, money. It asks the tough questions like what even “good” people do when faced with a ton of money.

I liked this book a lot. It’s a fun, easy read, with a, captivating, entertaining story and likeable, interesting characters, most of whom I’m rooting for, in spite of knowing that it’s not going to end well for everyone, or potentially anyone. There’s decent suspense, and I’m not going to give anything away. The book opens and we meet Neil and Chlöe on a boat, and a lot of money, which Chlöe is very interested in knowing how Neil came about the cash. So begins Neil’s story. Is Smith a Conrad fan? Who knows? It doesn’t matter. The story of embezzlement and sex and high seas highjinx was, for me, a fine long weekend read. Experimental lit this is not. Trashy? Maybe. But good characters, great story, really well written kind of trash. Enough that it’s made me curious to check out more Haskell Smith work.

3.5 STARS

A very unique read with some very interesting characters who are anything but normal!

I was shocked so many times while reading this novel that I decided to put plausibility aside and "just go with it". It is a high seas chase to see who will get the money. A Wall Street trader heist that sets this adventure in motion.

This one is full of satire, wild scenarios (including the sexual graphic kind), and a Wall Street trader heist that sets the adventure in motion. It has a comical side to all the crazy shenanigans. This had me both laughing out loud and raising my eyebrows or just plain bewildered.
Greed drives most of these wacko characters and the chase that entailed was quite entertaining with the Cayman Island setting and the expensive sailboats.

I loved the ending and was totally surprised by how it all wrapped up.

I loved “Blown” and was much relief from my usual fare of dark mystery/thrillers.

Inspired by Wall Street modern day robbers, the main character, a Wall Street trader rips off $17 million of his brokerage firm’s cash which begins a chase to hunt him down across the Caribbean.

With a motley crew of characters, this is a superbly crafted tale. The writer weaves this story with so many twists and turns and comic relief. Reading this was like being on a never ending roller coaster ride. I loved it!

Thank you Grove Atlantic and Netgalley for the advance digital copy.

Published by Grove Press/Black Cat on June 12, 2018

Bryan LeBlanc is a currency trader for an investment bank. Bryan has gone on vacation to the Dominican Republic, ditching his girlfriend and leaving his department manager, Seo-yun Kim, to handle the blowback when clients discover that money drawn on margin from their accounts has vanished into a bewildering network of transactions. Bryan has about $17 million to finance a comfortable lifestyle if he can avoid getting caught.

Neal Nathanson works for LeBlanc’s employer. Neal’s job is to track down investors who have skipped out on their margin calls. He’s been assigned to track down Bryan. Neal teams with Seo-yun to accomplish that mission. Seo-yun’s relationship with her irritating fiancé (he calls her forty times a day to discuss wedding plans) adds an additional layer of humor to this light crime story.

Bryan’s troubles compound as he makes his way to Grand Cayman, where his accomplice is holding his cash. His accomplice is untrustworthy, and a diminutive but well-endowed private detective from Curaçao named Piet Room has taken a break from seducing tourists to help Neal and Seo-yun track Bryan. Less scrupulous people on the scent of easy money, including a frustrated seascape painter, are also trying to find Bryan. When his situation becomes precarious, Bryan finds his personality changing in ways he doesn’t much like as he adapts to a dangerous lifestyle.

The novel actually begins at the end, with Neal adrift in a broken boat with no food or water until he’s rescued by Chlöe, who is sailing around the world solo to raise awareness of some disease she doesn’t care about. So what happened to Bryan and Seo-yun and the well-endowed Piet and the seascape painter who has stirred Neal’s erotic fantasies? It’s obvious from the beginning that something has gone wrong for someone. Maybe something has gone wrong for nearly everyone. The fun lies in following the well-paced plot until it catches up to the opening pages.

I would classify Blown as thriller light. It mixes comedy with suspense, and while the story is more chuckle-out-loud funny than belly-laugh funny, the comedy dominates. As thieves go, it is easy enough to like Bryan because he’s a decent guy despite his decision to gain freedom through larceny. It’s also easy to like Seo-yun and Neal, two wildly different characters who are both distracted by relationship problems as they chase after Bryan. All of the characters are flawed in ways that make them plausible human beings. With the exception of Neal, none are particularly virtuous — they tend to be enslaved by their temptations and then to be haunted by guilt — but that only enhances their amusement value. And a couple of the characters seem to be discovering themselves as the story moves forward. It’s nice to believe that it is never too late for that to happen.

Even though part of the ending is revealed at the novel’s beginning, the ending holds some surprises. Readers who want novels to reflect a better world than the one we inhabit might be disappointed in the novel’s outcomes, but the fates of the various characters come together in such unexpected and amusing ways that the story’s reminder that reality is frequently unjust doesn’t feel oppressive. At the same time, the ending suggests the possibility of redemption. Blown is a difficult balancing act, pitting good against evil and acknowledging all the gray area in between, but it finds a balance that is both satisfying and entertaining, all captured by the final line of dialog: “Everything is shit and everything is beautiful.”

RECOMMENDED

Smith takes a basic plot- an embezzler being chased by those he cheated- updates it and adds sex scenes. Some of the characters feel random and none are especially likable (although I was a fan of Seo-Yun more than Bryan-go figure). It's well plotted and written and a fast read. Some of the humor eluded me and parts were tiresome which makes me suspect it will be a polarizing read. Thanks for the ARC. This one would make a good movie.

Whoa! What on heaven’s name did I just read?

Bryan is a Wall Street trader that rips off his company for $17 million. He justifies it by thinking “they never hesitated to exploit the weaknesses of others, so why shouldn’t others exploit them right back?”

All the characters are truly, well characters. His boss, Seo-yun, is engaged, but not happy about it, she’s supposedly somewhere on the spectrum (although I didn’t really see that) and happiest when working. Until she gets to take an adventure...

There’s a kind of bonkers quality to this tale. What starts off fairly standard quickly morphs into craziness. Don’t look for believability here. But I have to admit to getting sucked in. I wanted to know how this would play out. Imagine something the Coen Brothers would direct and you get an idea. Just flat out twisted.

This is pure fun; escapist literature. It’ll make a great beach read. Enjoy!

My thanks to netgalley and Grove Press for an advance copy of this book.

A wonderfully witty and thought provoking romp starting in Wall Street and voyaging across oceans with a crew of scoundrels and an awful lot of money

Great book with excellent plot and character development! Look forward to more works from the author.

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to preview this book. A slow start, but a strong finish. A little weird, but still recommended.

I wanted to love this book based on the author, and the other reviews I read. Truthfully, the first half I could have completely done without. No one character was given his own voice, and no one plot line was really fleshed out. I did enjoy the complete lack of sympathy given towards the characters' conclusions though. The story of embezzled funds from a large investment firm in New York certainly isn't a new one, and although this book tried to put a different spin on it, I wouldn't say it succeeded. The ending was satisfying, but the amount of time it took to get there was not. I will say that there were gem-like phrases scattered throughout, where it's apparent this author is brilliant - just not in the writing of this book.

With un likable characters and gratuitous sex, this was not a novel that I could get into. Unfortunately, did not finish.

Blown did not engage me nor did it encourage me to reach for it nightly. I disliked all of the characters and thought the plot unbelievable. The random sex scenes were as tedious as the participants. If this book was a thriller, I was most underwhelmed. I am sorry I cannot say anything positive about this read. Thank you Netgalley and Grove Press, Black Cat for this ARC.

Bryan LeBlanc decided to trade a life as a lackey to a Wall Street bank for sailing, beautiful women, great food and a somewhat-endless paradise. However, he decides the best way to do that is to embezzle money from some of the bank's clients (~ $15 million). All he has to do is get away with it. Knowing the ins and out of how banks should make this easy, right?

This book was a quick, fun read if you don't mind lots of sex and... lots of mentioning of sex. Many may think this book is nonsensical but entertainment is entertainment and I was definitely entertained!

I did appreciate how the story was presented by different characters and how diverse they were - a Korean-American woman, a gay man, a Black man from Curaçao. Even despite the chase to catch Bryan and/or the money, it was surprisingly an interesting commentary on the lengths people would go to for money.

There's no real way to explain my experience with this book but it was a refreshing change of pace and content that I didn't realize I needed. It was a matter-of-fact situation with characters making impromptu decisions for their own happiness which seems fine by me. Money, crime, betrayal, sex positivity (surprisingly), no drugs (also surprisingly) and a common quest to find something greater in life than just the mundane.

A decidedly tongue in cheek novel dealing with the theft of a lot of money by an employee of a wall street firm who has been working at the Foreign Exchange desk for that company. Bryan LeBlanc has made the firm a lot of money and also plenty for himself via his bonuses and profit sharing. He finds that this is not enough and decides to help himself to a few million dollars with the intention of vanishing into a tropical paradise and living a life of leisure. So let it be said and so it is done.
But Bryan soon finds out that it is not as simple as he thought. He finds himself in the Cayman Islands amidst banks whose main interest is getting large depositors looking to hide money from their governments in order to avoid taxes. He is also being chased by several incompetents sent by the firm in order to find, return the money and have him arrested. First there is his supervisor Seo-yun Kim who quickly learns that she can have a lot of fun in the sun as well and also escape her dedicated fiancee whose main interest seems to be planning their wedding. With her is Neal Nathanson another employee whose job it is to find and stop all ner do wells taking money illegally from the company. He is more interested in the reason for a break up with his boy friend and what possessed him to ditch Neal. Complicating the matter is the presence of a detective from the island of Curacao Piet Room who finds that consoling Seo-yun by having a lot of sex with her is also good for his own ego.

The tale takes us through the Caribbean with bags of cash present in a yacht that everyone has their eyes on with very little thought going to the welfare of the Wall street firm. Mr. Smith creates a tale around which a simple case of embezzlement broadens out to a high stacks gamble for a lot of money. The book is pure entertainment, the characters two dimensional enough to take their places in the plot, and an enjoyable read sufficient enough to keep the reader going.

Blown has some classic thriller plot lines including a money manager who skedaddled to the Caribbean with duffel bags full of cold hard cash, an investigative team from the brokerage house chasing him across the islands in a bid to catch the money before the Press gets wind of the loss, and there are, of course, the islands, the sailboats, and the betrayals. It could have been the plot from any number of fifties paperback writers. It may be that I am difficult to please, but very little about this novel worked for me including the believability, the random sex scenes thrown about, or the character development.

Fast paced and gritty crime novel, right up my alley and it didn't disappoint! Very much enjoyed!

Fast paced crime thriller. Embezzlement, murder, and a sea faring adventure laced with sardonic humor. Perfect for fans of Donald Westlake.