The Wheelman

Synopsis/blurb.......Meet Lennon, a mute Irish getaway driver who has fallen in with the wrong heist team on the wrong day at the wrong bank. Betrayed, his money stolen and his battered carcass left for dead, Lennon is on a one-way mission to find out who is responsible--and to get back his loot. But the robbery has sent a violent ripple effect through the streets of Philadelphia. And now a dirty cop, the Russian and Italian mobs, the mayor's hired gun, and a keyboard player in a college rock band manoeuvre for position as this adrenaline-fuelled novel twists and turns its way toward its explosive conclusion.One thing's for sure: This cast of characters wakes up in a much different world by novel's end--if they wake up at all.About 4 hours of fun reading this in the one sitting on Sunday afternoon. I read this originally back in the late 2000's and rated it a 4 on my own little scoring chart. Selected as my Goodreads Pulp fiction group's monthly read for August, I was initially tempted to give it a miss because of my previous reading. Bu then as the book was available relatively cheaply second hand I thought why not?Glad I did to be honest as second time around it ticked more boxes for me than it managed to a few years ago. Fast and frenetic with an intriguing main character and a decent support cast of double-crossing gangsters, corrupt cops, Russian Mafiya and Italian wise-guys. Horrible people doing horrible things interspersed with mainly "decent" people forced to do horrible things......lovely!It is unlikely that I will enjoy another book as much as this one this month, but hey I live in hope! (But will probably die in despair...)5 from 5Obtained second hand from Abe books recently.

This slim crime debut from Philadelphia City Paper editor Swierczynski, starts with an awesome Michael Mann-like set piece, proceeds at breakneck pace through some rollicking Quentin Tarantino-like pulp fiction turf, before petering out with a bit of a whimper in a rather unsatisfying ending. Having previously written a non-fiction book (This Here's a Stick-Up) about bank heists, Swierczynski is primed with plenty of info about how they go down. This shows in the opening portion of the story, where a pair of thieves and the titular getaway driver knock over a Wachovia in downtown Philadelphia. The writing is simple, crisp, and intensely cinematic, as their carefully laid plan hits a speed bump or two, but seemingly comes off.But sudden reversals are the running theme of the book, and all does not go quite as expected. We next find the driver, Lennon, in a body bag, about to get tossed into a construction project pit, along with his fellow dead heisters. In a comical and bloody scene somewhat reminiscent of Elmore Leonard, he manages to free himself and get away, setting off a chain reaction of double and triple-crosses, as all manner of people start chasing after the missing money. A drunken ex-cop, remnants of the Italian mafia, the new Russian mafiya, dirty cops, half of a bad cover band, a fixer (like the Jon Voight character in Heat), an annoying college girl, Lennon's lady, and a mysterious man in black. All get into the dizzying mix, and at the center of it all Lennon, a mute Irishman who knows cars, books, and survival, and that's about all. (Rather oddly though, there are no car chases, and other than the very beginning, Lennon's driving expertise is left untapped.)The story is built on fast pacing and pulling the rug out from under characters and the reader. Swierczynski loves to engage in misdirection, and although he sometimes repeats himself a little too much (an overused plot device is that those who appear dead may not actually be dead), and the relationship between Lennon and Katie isn't as camouflaged as he might wish, but the story still has more tricks up its sleeve than any ten average crime stories combined. A corollary to this is how Swierczynski often kills characters very suddenly and unexpectedly, which somehow feels more true to the genre than what one usually finds. And there's plenty of sparse, laconic style, as the body count rises in gruesome fashion. Everything is handled so well that the way everything climaxes in the last ten pages is somehow a letdown. Still, it's a completely entertaining book that will almost certainly be made into a movie, and I will definitely be looking for Swierczynski's next book.

If I had some spare cash waiting for an investment opportunity I would have sought to buy the movie rights to The Wheelman within the first thirty pages of starting. The novel starts at a ferocious pace and never lets up, driven by snappy dialogue and taut action, with almost every scene containing a twist. In fact I can't remember a story with so many twists and turns, with double, triple and more crosses, as every character seeks to get the better of the others in the hunt for the stolen money. In so doing, Swierczynski drags the principle character, Lennon, through the wringer, so that although he's no saint you can't put help root for the guy. The book is not without its faults - for example, a couple of the scenes lack credibility notably the first scene at the pipe - but ultimately it doesn't matter. The Wheelman is a rollercoaster of a book. I loved it from first page to last.

I'm fairly new to the crime genre and started with this as it was short and self-contained. The book was a lot of fun (if you like bad things happening to bad people) and the pace was lightning fast throughout. The main character is likeable despite being a nasty piece of work, although the fact everyone else tends to be even worse makes it easier to root for him. One element I'm still not totally sure I liked or not was the fact that all the characters are so interconnected. While it makes the story more cohesive it has the tendency to stretch believability to breaking point as well.The ending is strong and the newspaper clippings at the end provide a funny epilogue.