RARA-AVIS: NINE MIL by Rob Ryan

From: Paul Hartshorne ( paul@day1.demon.co.uk)
Date: 03 May 2000


Has anyone read the recently published NINE MIL by Rob Ryan?

It's a caper novel about the son of an Atlantic City mobster who dreams of building a tax-free outlet mall on Governor's Island in NYC. In order to facilitate this he has to payoff some City Hall bigwigs. A gang of individuals from his past, lead by a fat cabbie, plan to relieve him of a payoff during one of his bagman runs. Of course, it's not that simple...

Ryan is an English writer and this is his second novel (the first was called UNDERDOGS and set in Seattle, I haven't read it). It's a little bloated and naturally it includes the odd Britishism or two, but worse than this is the poor editing. One character's name changes from Shawn to Chris and back to Shawn again on three consecutive pages!

Overall I quite enjoyed it, and Rarebirds who go for heist novels might like it.

BTW, I've just started TOMATO RED. I keep forgetting what a great writer Daniel Woodrell is!

- Paul

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