I just love Lou Berney's writing. It's tight, smart, and often very funny.

Here, he's hit his sweet spot with a sort-of generational epic, sort-of collection of connected short stories, centering around a family of... well, crooks.

The antiheroes are all engaging, and the crime stories don't fail any of them; thrilling, surprising, and rooted in character. I liked some of the earlier stories a little better than the later ones, with Ray's story the clear standout -- but I felt like the book stuck the landing nonetheless. I don't think I could have more thoroughly enjoyed it.

**Not For Me!

In fairness to the author, my disappointment in Crooks is not due to his writing style, as Berney writes in a style that provides the reader with a fast-paced read.

Rather, my opinion as to why Crooks was not a book for me stems from the following factors:

…My incorrect expectation from the book’s description was that it was going to be a crime family novel on the order of the Corleone family in The Godfather; which is one of my favorite types of books. Instead, it was a book about a family named the Mercurios, consisting of the husband, wife and their five children; each of whom engaged in mostly low-level criminal activities over about a 40 year time span.

…This misunderstanding, despite being somewhat disappointing, in and of itself wouldn’t have been a big issue for me. However, what was a very big source of dissatisfaction is that the book reads like five separate stories, each about the exploits of the five Mercurio children over time; with little that ties each of these stories together, along with an update on their parents, until the final chapters of the book. For me, some of the individual stories of the Mercurio children were interesting and attention-grabbing, while others were not very interesting and compelling.

…So, while Crooks was a fast read, it was too inconsistent in terms of its ability to sustain a high level my interest throughout, causing me to consider Crooks to just be a fair book.

#Crooks #NetGalley