Rating: 3* of five

The Book Description: “Mackie dreaded the mail.” From this simple beginning, Peter Abrahams opens the curtains on a mesmerizing world down on the Mexican border, a world of complex and passionate people whose ambitions will lead them on a relentless collision course, a desert world that rises to the mythic in Their Wildest Dreams. The suspense will grab you and not let go, the surprises will shock you, but in the end it will be the wonderful characters who linger in your mind.

Characters like Mackie Larkin, a suburban mother desperate for money, who finds she can earn it as a stripper; Kevin Larkin, her ex-husband whose get-rich-quick schemes left her with a mountain of debt, and who now dreams up an even better one; Lianne, their beautiful, impulsive teenage daughter, for whom almost anything, even bank robbery, is possible; Jimmy Marz, the wrangler she loves, who gets a dangerous onetime offer that could take him to the life he’s always wanted; Buck Samsonov, the charismatic strip-club owner building a southwestern empire in the lawless style of a 19th-century robber baron; Clay Krupsha, a twenty-first-century captain of detectives in a border town where no crime is what it seems; and Nicholas Loeb, a struggling mystery writer whose encounter with an unstable muse entangles him in a web of true crime more mysterious than anything he imagined.

Utterly original, multilayered, and marked by the gripping suspense, sharp wit, and fascinating psychological insights for which Peter Abrahams has been acclaimed, here is a major work—a riveting story of modern-day desperadoes living their wildest dreams.

My Review: At the apex of the Mouldering Mound of ~Meh~ one finds thrillers with silly sex and sad women who don't quite have it. And here we are.

Plots revolving around trusting women getting taken by smooth-talking con men, whether husbands, boyfriends, or strangers on a train, annoy me. And here we are.

Teenaged girls who fall for older bad boys, lose their virginity to them, and lose big, tick me off. And here we are.

Why go on, if the picture's not clear yet it won't get clearer. These are well-worn paths in thrillerdom and there is not one bit of this book that's “utterly original.” It's multi-layered, I suppose. It's competently written, I suppose. It's fast enough paced, I suppose.

And I do not give the hairs on the ass of a rat. It's fine, yes sure, fine fine, nothing to complain about except how completely forgettable it all is, and in an hour I won't remember if Lianne was the mom or the daughter, or Nick was the writer or the daddy. In a month, I won't remember the title, and by next birthday, you can show me this review and my only question will be: “Did I read that? I didn't read that.”

But I'll say it in my best Bette Midler voice, so you'll get the joke. ( )

Very fun book. Good story and characters. Tough lady strips, owes the IRS money. ( )