Customer Reviews

Double Down (Onyx)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Tom Kakonis is perhaps the best mystery writer in America today. Though he has not received one tenth of the acclaim or the attention given to Elmore Leonard, his cast of characters is more colorful and his plots more intriguing. Tom Kakonis is a true artist with respect to the "craft " of writing. As a former bookseller at one of Denver's more renowned bookstores,I recommended Tom Kakonis hundreds of times and always heard gratified thanks from returning customers. Double Down is a top-notch mystery/suspense that will be enjoyed by any reader of James W. Hall, Elmore Leonard, or James Burke

been there and came close to what he writes about, and he knows the feelings -the depression after the all day and night game-the hollowness felt on returning to the other non poker world,even as a winner and the discipline and bile producing tension of the game -the oppressive,stifling heat of south florida the pillsbury man hates so much--the seediness underlying palm beach's supposed grandeur-the people are scary real--they exist! - he must know their prototypes-these can't be whole cloth inventions!--best poker story-let alone novel,i've read to date.he writes with a patience for his characters' thoughts that is fluid and comes only with superior craft and brilliance of exposition-wonderful stuff-not a hack writer and tough to repeat these intensities again and again-where leonard is formulaic kakonis is unique--more gritty and nasty and real -he doesn't use his people for laughs-if there are any they arise naturally from the action--there is that place he writes about and he writes about it better than anyone else-got to get michigan roll since this is the first kakonis book i've read--a find!!

Nice Elmore Leonardesque thriller. The dialogue between the two hitmen (one pro - D'Marco and one thugishy amateurish - Sigurd Stumpley) is a thing of beauty. The Kirkus review got the book just right. The gambler and accidental criminal Waverly has some hard knocks but keeps on surviving.

I've lost interest in the last third of this book. I'm skipping over many pages. I feel that he is too wordy and descriptive. A lot of his writing is not essential to the plot? Just get to the point. He should definitely not be compared to the great Elmore Leonard, I love his books.

After reading the glowing reviews of this book, I ended up disappointed by it--although I want to give Michigan Roll a try. First, the plot was predictable. Waverly is holed up across a conveniently abandoned hotel, which you just know is going to figure prominently. When his room gets conveniently fumigated (convenient from the perspective of the plot), you anticipate what is going to happen. So, the action comes across as contrived. Second, Kakonis completely and relentlessly overdoes the slang. Slang brings life to dialogue, but I've never heard anyone in real life use slang as much as his characters do. It was almost as if he would take every single nonslang sentence like "We need to get $200,000" and then translate it into slang ("We need to score 2 balloons" or something), which is OK in moderation, but just don't do it for *every* sentence, because then it doesn't sound authentic. Leonard is a master at capturing everyday speech patterns, but he never overdoes it. Third, the pace of the book starts off too slow. For the first half of the book, I keep picking it up and then putting it down after a couple of pages. The plot doesn't gather steam until the card games. Fourth, his characters are blatant stereotypes--*every one*. Fifth, Waverly is supposed to be the sympathetic "doomed yet philosophical tough guy," someone at home in Jacktown but who can quote Marvell, yet I got tired of his self-pity. Sixth, some scenes included errors (a room is too dark to see in, and then suddenly a character is gathering up small objects from the floor as if it were well-lit) or were just plain unbelievable (would he/she really act this way in this situation?). Given all that, why am I going to try another of his other books? Because this book had a few things going for it: the gambling angle, humorous characters, occasional exciting action sequences. Maybe Michigan Roll hangs together better.