Changes

You might suppose, then, that ''The Drop-Off'' is simply a rewrite of ''Smoked''. And, as Barry Norman might once have said, why not? The plot is, of course, predictable but it's all about the action. Unfortunately, sometimes the action sometimes chugs along rather slowly (at one stage a mobster says to his sidekick, ''This is about the slowest f***ing car chase in the history of the world'', which is a summary of at least the first half of the book). Quinlan has an annoying habit of giving the reader the full backstory of every new character he introduces which, despite their always colourful backstory, I just found a tedious brake on the action – to hell with the backstory, I wanted to get on with the frontstoryfront story! He also seems to write for the lowest common denominator. To give just one example: we are told when we meet Cruz's girlfriend that, until she fell for the stone-cold killer, Pamela had ''her job at the library, her quiet life, her cute little apartment''. Fine. It's a cliché, but we have an effective picture of Pamela. But Quinlan then goes on to remind us of Pamela's backstory nearly every time she crops up, including her final scene when we are told that, ''Pamela, the formerly shy and retiring librarian, was going to do just fine''.

Further reading suggestion: The debut novel by Quinlan, ''Smoked'', introduced the characters in this latest offering. If you like a novel where there are no 'goodies', just different shades of baddies', you might like [[Small Crimes by Dave Zeltserman]]. We can also recommend [[The Killing of Polly Carter by Robert Thorogood]].