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Crooked: Honest Criminality by Bronwen John (view source)
Revision as of 10:23, 3 January 2023
, 10:23, 3 January 2023no edit summary
Ash is just sixteen but she became a pickpocket at thirteen and she's a good con artist. She'd learned a lot from Luke Gaines but she's now heading for Norway and the legendary Esther Crook. Crook's day job is poker player but what she doesn't know about the long-con isn't worth knowing. And Esther has her own reasons for going after Holmes: he killed her mother. It's not long before she's persuaded to put together a crew, with Ash as the insider, to hit Holmes where it hurts - in his reputation. It's not going to be easy though: Holmes is after Esther and the crime agencies are closing in too.
That actually sounded quite simple, didn't it? Well, it isn't. You're going to have to be in the wide-awake club to keep track of what's happening in ''Crooked'': this book has real pace and you can't really relax until you've turned the final page. Even then you'll wonder if you've missed something important. There's that sort of dramatic tension. Strings are being pulled but by whom - and who is doing the conning? There's only one person you feel is really in control and that's Esther but it's not only in poker that she plays her cards close to her chest. Sometimes you'll wonder if you're being conned too...
I've not really been into TV programmes such as ''Hustle'', so this was a whole, new genre for me and, boy, was I impressed. Don't worry if you're unfamiliar with a lot of the terms - there's an excellent glossary at the back of the book and I made a lot of use of it in the early pages - and then I was caught up in the story and it wasn't necessary. Bronwen John does a great job with her characters: I'll quibble very slightly and say that the women are better than the men but that is me being ''very '' picky. Esther has a strict moral code: she's not a thief and I loved her mantra: ''You can do what you like with the law; bend it, twist it, hide behind it... just don't break it.''
Esther might be the star of the show but she has a splendid supporting actor in Ash Cox. John's skill as a writer is shown by the way that she brings out Ash's vulnerable side, her uncertainties and her impetuousness: she might be living in a world that's far from ideal for a girl in her mid-teens but John captures that moment in her development superbly.
I finished the book far too quickly and I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a review copy to the Bookbag. I was also fortunate to be able to see a Kindle copy of ''Crooked'' (a luxury for most book reviewers) and it was a well-formatted and comfortable read. Text-to-speech, word wise and enhanced typesetting are enabled and screen reader is supported. The print length is 205 pages with an expected reading time of just over four hours.
For another heist story, have a look at [[Doors Open by Ian Rankin]]: it might be Rankin but Bronwen John has created a far-more gripping story in ''Crooked''.
You can read more about Bronwen John [[:Category:Bronwen John|here]]. {{toptentext|list=Top Ten Self-Published Books 2021}}
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