The Big Get-Even
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
A disbarred lawyer and an ex-arsonist cross paths and find themselves organizing an elaborate real estate scam to bilk a shady rich speculator out of twenty million dollars. The sting is personal for ex-arsonist Stan and for a woman named Vee, who plays an essential role in the caper. Glen, the narrator and former lawyer, finds himself at first just along for the money. Eventually, as bonds deepen among the conspirators, Glen too discovers he has a lot more at stake than simply the loot.
This cast of lively eccentrics discover along the way that getting to the big payoff might just be more scary fun than the monetary prize itself.
“Raymond Chandler would envy some of Di Filippo’s similes and wisecracks…Storytelling artistry meets scam artistry and the lucky reader scores big.” —Michael Dirda, Pulitzer Prize–winning critic and Edgar Award–winning author
“Compulsively readable and spiked with wry wit. You cheer the motley characters every step of the way to the H-bomb climax…Raymond Chandler would love this book.” —Rudy Rucker, Philip K. Dick Award–winning author of the Ware Tetralogy
“An astonishingly accomplished, virtually seamless caper-suspense novel…I hope there will be more of these and that I will be present for at least some.” —Barry N. Malzberg
“[This]cocktail of classic noir blends a cast of sexy and larcenous guys and molls, a wittily suspenseful buildup, and a gasp-provoking payoff.” —Michael Bishop, author of Ancient of Days
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set somewhere in the American west, this clever thriller from Di Filippo (A Palazzo in the Stars) boasts a sophisticated scam story line. Glen McClinton, who used to be a "young, high-flying legal eagle," landed behind bars after bilking clients of millions. After his release, Glen is directionless until Stan Hasso, a fellow ex-con who might have died of a drug overdose shortly after leaving prison if Glen hadn't been there to intervene, approaches him with a tempting proposition. Stan did time for arson after being betrayed by the man who paid him to torch buildings, real estate mogul Barnaby Nancarrow. Stan proposes a partnership with Glen to fleece Nancarrow out of $20 million by convincing Nancarrow that he should pay big bucks for a piece of land Glen owns, Bigelow Junction, because a Vegas developer is going to build a casino on it and raise its value. Complications arise when Glen's parole officer insists that his stated intention to reopen the motor lodge on the Bigelow Junction land be backed up by actual progress. Di Filippo, best known for his science fiction, proves equally adept at crime fiction. Fans of Ocean's Eleven will find plenty to like.)
