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S'està carregant… Boost (edició 2004)de Steve Brewer
Informació de l'obraBoost de Steve Brewer
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Apunta't a LibraryThing per saber si aquest llibre et pot agradar. No hi ha cap discussió a Converses sobre aquesta obra. Hot on Mr. Leonard’s literary heels is Steve Brewer with his latest novel about an Albuquerque car thief who steals the wrong low rider, but doesn’t find out until he discovers a dead DEA informant in the trunk of his next job, a 1965 T-bird. You can also read Mr. Brewer’s column in the Albuquerque Tribune. Published in hardcover by speck press. Sense ressenyes | afegeix-hi una ressenya
Sam Hill steals cars. Not just any cars, but collectible cars, rare works of automotive artistry. Sam's a specialist, and he's made a good life for himself in Albuquerque, NM. Things change one night after he steals a primo 1965 Thunderbird from a lawyer's house. In the trunk, Sam finds a corpse, a police informant with a bullet hole between his eyes. And he learns that cops are swarming the garage where he'd planned to deliver the T-Bird. Somebody set Sam up. Played a trick on him. And Sam, a prankster himself, can't let it go. He must find whoever framed him, and get his revenge with an even bigger practical joke, one that soon has gangsters gunning for him and police on his tail. Using his own resourcefulness as well as the assistance of his two pals, apprentice thief Billy Suggs and an inscrutable giant named Way-Way Henderson, Sam learns who's behind the body in the trunk--Phil Ortiz, a notorious drug dealer and car collector. Sam, it seems, boosted Ortiz's favorite car--a green low-rider painted with the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe--and Ortiz is determined to get even. And to get that car back. But Sam has other ideas. Such as sticking Ortiz with the body of the dead informant. Such as framing the sweaty salvage man who sided with Ortiz. Such as stealing the drug dealer's entire collection of valuable cars. The stakes get higher with each round of one-upsmanship. Finally, it's clear that Ortiz won't quit until he has the last laugh and Sam Hill's dead. In Boost, Brewer stirs up his usual potent mixture of high crime and low comedy in a rollicking novel where car thieves are the good guys and the action never stops. No s'han trobat descripcions de biblioteca. |
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Google Books — S'està carregant… GèneresClassificació Decimal de Dewey (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LCC (Clas. Bibl. Congrés EUA)ValoracióMitjana:
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Boost
by Steve Brewer
Speck Press, 252 pages, hardback, 2004
Sam Hill is a professional car thief. Boosting cars is his
main source of emotional stimulus . . . with the possible
exception of his romantic yearnings toward his fence, Robin
Mitchell, daughter of the fence and car thief who mentored Sam
way back in the days before he'd found anything worthwhile to do
with his life. In turn Sam is mentoring the youth Billy Suggs,
teaching him not just how to be a car thief but the
artistry of the profession for Sam's specialty is
not common-or-garden theft but the stealing, under commissions
channeled through Robin, of rare and collectible items.
It's a good life until the day Sam discovers the Thunderbird
he's just stolen has a dead body in the trunk. His first task is
of course to get rid of the corpse before the cops come sniffing
(perhaps literally) around. But the problem's bigger than that.
The whole situation smacks of a setup: someone's trying to land
him not just in trouble but in serious trouble, including
a possible murder rap. That someone has to be stopped before they
try something, well, worse.
Aided by Billy, Robin and Sam's man-mountain friend Way-Way,
Sam soon traces the line back to seedy car fence Ernesto Morales
and beyond him to drugs kingpin Phil Ortiz, who, it proves, is
seeking revenge for the time Sam boosted one of his prized
collection of vintage cars. The makeshift team of buddies find
themselves taking on Ortiz and Ortiz's equally murderous army of
thugs in a tit-for-tat war of thrust and counterthrust, all the
while keeping out of the clutches of both local and federal cops.
This is not a war Sam intends to lose, even though just
capitulating and getting out of town could well be his wiser
course. But to win it he's going to have to be very inventive
indeed . . .
This is modern, straightforward, fast-moving, no-nonsense
caper fiction at something close to its finest. The characters
are beautifully and economically drawn, in the best noir
tradition not just the major players but also the
supporting cast, including notably the cops Stanton and Delgado
and their fed counterparts Brock and Jones (Jones is an
especially delightful creation). At times the text is as laugh-
out-loud funny as anything by Donald E. Westlake; at other times
it's as grim as anything by Westlake's auctorial alter ego
Richard Stark. Always it's possessed of a lively wit and
intelligence . . . and it would make a marvellous movie.
This little gem of a novel is thoroughly recommended.
This review, first published by Crescent Blues, is
excerpted from my ebook Warm Words and Otherwise: A Blizzard
of Book Reviews, to be published on September 19 by Infinity
Plus Ebooks.
( )