I received an advance reader copy of Crooks via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The book is set for release on September 9, 2025.

Crooks traces the Mercurio family across four decades, offering a series of glimpses into the lives of the Mercurio children and their parents. Based on the title, I was expecting something more in the vein of The Godfather—a gritty, sweeping saga steeped in organized crime. Instead, the novel unfolds more like a collection of vignettes or novellas, each focusing on a different child and their journey.

Though it wasn’t quite what I anticipated, I still found it engaging. Some stories resonated more than others, but collectively, they created a layered and nuanced portrait of a family shaped by both legacy and personal choice. While hardcore Mafia/Crime fans may not find the genre's usual hallmarks here, the influence is there—subtle, thematic, and woven throughout.

Readers seeking a book that brings to mind the television series and movie Fargo or Elmore Leonard novels will do well to pick up Lou Berney's work of interconnected stories featuring members of one particular family. Beginning in the 1960s with a couple who meet while performing crimes, the novel progresses throughout the next 50 years as each offspring of the criminal couple has their own illegal stories to tell. Marked with intricate steps to crimes, punctuated by violence and incorporating dry, dark humor (see: Fargo) this well constructed book moves very quickly. Each sibling has their own take on crimes from mob enforcer, scam artist, white collar crime to human trafficking. Characters are well fleshed out but each with a sympathetic side. Savvy readers may see a parallel in the interconnected tales to Amor Towles short story collection, Table for Two. The final chapter seems rushed and a bit out of step but that is forgiven as the majority of the book holds fascination for all crime readers.

It’s only May, but I feel confident that Crooks will be my book of the year.

This spectacular, multi-generational saga introduces the Mercurios: the most endearing family of misfits this side of Tenenbaums. It all starts in 1960s Las Vegas, when Buddy (a small-time mobster) and Lillian (a charming pickpocket) are forced to flee after a job goes wrong. They land in Oklahoma City and build a new life, raising five unforgettable children who go on to blaze their own paths of twists and trouble: the Hollywood golden boy looking for his big break; the acrobat in Moscow who can’t slow down; the white collar lawyer in NYC who wants nothing to do with her crooked kin; the meat-headed but soft-hearted bodyguard in Vegas who’s learning to think for himself; and the youngest of them all, a naive writer desperate to belong.

Berney’s writing is electric. Every character crackles with life, and each storyline is compelling on its own. (Though a 10-year-old Russian orphan unexpectedly steals the show midway through.) The novel moves across decades and continents, but its heart is always the Mercurios—brilliant, brash, funny, selfish.

For fans of Spoonbenders or Sneaky Pete, this is storytelling at its finest. The tagline is true: you’ve never met a family like the Mercurios. I’ve read every Lou Berney novel and can safely say he’s outdone himself here.

My only complaint is also a compliment: Because each character gets their own novella, essentially, it’s hard to leave them behind. I loved each Mercurio for very different reasons, and I missed them dearly when I had to move on to the next one’s story. If that’s not the sign of a terrific writer, I don’t know what is.

Thanks to William Morrow and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Crooks is a riveting tale of a one-of-a-kind crime family’s forty-year run of corruption, scams, transgressions and business dealings. Lou Berney delivers an extraordinary tale that is unlike anything you’ve ever read. It’s engaging, sinful and wickedly entertaining.

This is the story of the Mercurio family. The patriarch is Buddy, a Vegas mob guy, and the matriarch is Lillian, a charming woman with criminal proclivities of her own. After fleeing Vegas to avoid their imminent demise, they surface in Oklahoma City and start a disco that seemingly prints money through legitimate and illegal activity. And their five young children are all involved. Which sets each one off on a different path to either embrace or escape their family’s dark history. Kicking off a trip through four decades that checks in on each member of the family at different times, showing how their past has shaped their future…for better or worse.

The structure of Crooks storytelling is fascinating. It starts with the parents, then shows the family together in their early years, before transitioning to focus on each one of the kids individually at different points in time. The story builds chronologically, but through the actions and exploits of each individual character before moving to the next one at a later date. Allowing for a deep dive into each character, developing their story and showcasing their life choices without interruption or distraction from what the others are up to at that moment. And while there is some overlap of the characters in some of the sections, this book can be viewed as 7 separate short stories that come together to form a complete novel through the common thread of exploring a single family’s life through the years.

It’s a unique method to keep the intrigue levels high and to create a sense of urgency for the reader to want to move forward in order to learn each character’s story. Kudos to Lou Berney for coming up with this concept and executing it so well. It makes for an absorbing and exceedingly interesting reading experience.

I really liked how each member of the family was given time to tell their story. It definitely did, however, leave me wanting more - I definitely wanted the gaps filled in on everything we missed for each person's life. Perhaps, we only saw what was "important" though. I could easily see books being written with each family member as a main character - they could each fill a novel all on their own....well except maybe poor Piggy.

Overall, while this wasn't necessarily the story I initially though it would be based on the cover/description, it was in fact literally about a family of mostly crooks of one form or another. A well-written, intriguing novel I'd recommend to anyone.

Thank you to William Morrow and Net Galley for this ARC. #Crooks #NetGalley

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