Sunday, January 2, 2011

#1: Prince of Thieves by Chuck Hogan

I started 2011 with a book I wasn't quite finished with in 2010, and though I wanted to end with a bang I will start with one instead.

Prince of Thieves is a tough crime novel featuring a recovering alcoholic trying to give up his working-class Boston neighborhood and all its dangerous attractions, including a lucrative side job leading a bank robbery gang.  When he is lovestruck by a bank teller during a heist, all the threads start to come unraveled as the novel rockets to a noirish finale.

I picked this one up from www.paperbackswap.com when I heard about The Town, the Ben Affleck film based on the book, and had an eagerness to consume both.  I could quickly see why Affleck wanted to adapt the book as it features a lot of his sensibilities (as seen in Good Will Hunting and other places).  The movie is decent, but the novel is far richer as is often the case (and diverges significantly from the movie in critical places).

I had been looking for more Chuck Hogan since reading The Strain, his collaboration with Guillermo Del Toro, and enjoyed this quite a bit, recommending it to several other readers.

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