Thick As Thieves - Hardcover

Quinn, Patrick

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0517700093 ISBN 13: 9780517700099

Publisher: Crown, 1995

Synopsis

The sensational debut of a crime novelist who will remind readers of how thrilling it was to read Carl Hiassen, Robert B. Parker, or Elmore Leonard for the first time. This novel features Mackin, a rogue and a professional thief who survives by being the very best--and by never breaking his own rules.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

Although its pages, littered with made guys and elaborate hits, follows the misadventures of a dedicated crook on a job gone bad, this debut crime story doesn't make it into the Eugene Izzi/Elmore Leonard league. Mackin, a professional thief who agrees to steal food stamps from a printer, is cheated by the black crimelord in charge of the heist, who then sets two crooked cops on his tail. Left with no option but to waste the cops and flee, Mackin vows vengeance. As he delivers on his threat, shady businesses are hit, cars burn and innocents die. A career cop follows the action, as does the mobster who put Mackin in touch with the traitorous crime lord and now is sorry. Although the mobster is in Chicago, the job is in an unnamed nearby city and some of the subsequent action may be in either place. Readers will have further trouble locating themselves in relation to the sharp-edged, unsympathetic Mackin, a rogue who is redeemed by neither the fierce streetwise morality of Izzi's characters nor the gallows humor of Leonard's.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist:

Mackin is a thief. He's also a professional. When he does a job, he does it neatly, quietly, and with people he trusts. Frank Riles asks Mackin for a favor. There's a heist in another town with a guy named Pointy Williams that will eventually benefit Riles. Though Mackin has his doubts, Riles is okay and has never steered him wrong. Besides, $20,000 for a day's work is mighty tempting. But Williams is a goof and decides to have Mackin killed after the job to avoid paying him. He uses a couple of bent cops for the job, but Mackin senses the double cross and kills the cops. Mackin wants revenge on Williams but has to lay low as the killer of two cops. Publisher hype for this first novel begs comparisons to Elmore Leonard, and there are similarities, but ultimately Quinn's work deserves its own identity. It's cleverly plotted--more so than one would expect for a revenge novel--and Mackin is a first-rate antihero. His moral code is presented early and--though it's definitely not middle class--he sticks to it. An impressive debut. Wes Lukowsky

About this edition

• Publisher: Crown
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0517700093
• ISBN 13: 9780517700099
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 242