No stars as I couldn't get into it. Will try again. Next month.

Overall not heinous, but not outstanding either. Too many mistakes, repetitions and cookie-cutter situations for that. I liken it to a low-budget action movie or an 80s TV series like The A-team. Watchable, but not something you remember for long.

My notes while reading the (free) ebook -

p. 39 "Grady put up his hand. His eyes became dark slits." - I thought he only had the one. Seriously, Edgerton went through a lot of detail and agony over the lost eye that caused Grady early retirement from the force. Not to mention the eschewing of the glass eye for the pirate patch. Then this? Ugh.

Random waitress in a random diner notices minute detail in a random customer. Weird.

Originally this was written in the mid-1990s I think, but has been updated and re-written several times. Still, on one occasion Grady has to go hunting for a map in gas stations. Eh, I don't know. I guess it's feasible, but in the age of smart-phones (which get screen time later) it seems like sloppy editing/revising.

The main 3 characters all get big info-dumps of backstory. CJ's goes on and on. Sure it's good to know how not-quite-a-nice-guy he is, but please, all at once? You've got more time with the character than just that one scene; piece it out for heaven's sake. Oh and for a bank president, he's got an awful lot of free time and can just do stuff without much attention/oversight. Strange.

What's with the Animal Cops soliloquy about illegal monkeys? Irritating and distracting. Should have been edited out.

There's a lot of silly obfuscation of people's identities that just shouldn't be there considering the person is specifically identified in just a few sentences. Like two cops did this and a Cuban-American did that...so what if you're not keeping the anonymity for a while. It was a style choice I didn't like.

The flashback fight between Jack and Grady was hilarious. Has Edgerton ever had a fight with anyone? NO ONE fights like that. In nice complete sentences with plenty of opportunity to explain to the other person why you're being such a jerk and plenty of time to get in your accusations and insults. No one interrupts or yells. OMG it was funny.

Awkward language at times, like word repetitions in the same sentence and stuff like "the killer of his brother". Eh, it wasn't all like this, but a lot of it was pretty choppy and unpolished.

OK, enough already! Reader is a genius. Super-smart. Super-genius even. Oy, that got old. Everyone who met the guy went off about how brilliant he was and what an ultra-criminal he must be. Based on what? Grady jumps to this conclusion after about a 2-minute conversation with a bartender. It's crazy. And it got beaten to death. Maybe I'm not a super-genius, but I don't have the memory of a goldfish either. Reader might though since he apparently saw Grady after he'd assumed his goons had killed him, but in the next long internal monologue; no Grady on his mind even though he's supposed to be paranoid, an all-potentials planner and a super-genius.

Role reversal! In the end it's Grady who monologues about how put-upon he's been in his life, how following his hallowed father's advice to stay on the straight an narrow got him nothing. Worse than nothing; got him handicapped and broke. All justification to steal the drug money and run. All Reader does is grunt and spew invective.

Eeek. I realize I didn't note anything positive. Here goes.

I liked Whitney despite her name and strange dialogue. The sex scene wasn't too bad, but the insta-romance was kind of annoying. Especially Grady's mooning. The relationship between him and his brother was pretty well done, albeit he seemed to be hung up on Jack's genius IQ, too. It pushed the self-deprecation angle a bit hard, but was even-handed.

Sally and Veronica were pretty fun and wicked handy to have around. Especially the string-pulling and shotgun wielding not just the excellent bar hangout. Those things rang a bit truer when it comes to this kind of novel than did Grady's "investigation" which was nothing but a series of lucky breaks and huge, huge assumptions. Lots of guessing going on and little actual deduction. Everything seemed to be an epiphany out of a clear blue sky. Enjoyable though, in an A-team kind of way. ( )