From Publishers Weekly
If you're a con artist, is there anyone you can trust? That's the question for the protagonists of this stylish but somewhat hollow novel by Garcia (Anonymous Rex). Roy is a careful, fiscally prudent and emotionally barren con man suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder-really suffering, now that his psychiatrist has left town and Roy has run out of his medication. Frankie, his partner, spends wildly and always wants to pull just one more scam. The trouble begins when Frankie introduces Roy to Dr. Klein, a well-meaning psychiatrist who aims to do more than merely dispense pills and who ends up reuniting Roy with the daughter he never knew he had. Fourteen-year-old Angela is far from angelic as she worms her way into Roy's life (not unlike Tatum O'Neal's character in the movie Paper Moon, but without her sheen of innocence). Set in an unnamed American city and told in clipped, streetwise prose, the novel is ingeniously plotted (the ending is a real surprise), though the scams themselves aren't as clever as one might hope. More seriously, in spite of the detailed descriptions of their neuroses, Roy and Frankie are underdeveloped; Roy delivers a few funny interior monologues, and there's some crackling dialogue, but these bad guys don't quite gel into memorable characters. The title apparently refers to a slang term for con men, but reading about Roy and Frankie, one can't help thinking of its other association: stick figures.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Library Journal
On the basis of his first two novels, Casual Rex and Anonymous Rex, Garcia established himself as a cult favorite. For his third outing, he sheds the dinosaur trappings to deliver a straightforward variation on The Sting that combines elements of The Odd Couple and Paper Moon to create what could be his breakout book. Matchstick men are con artists, represented here by Roy and Frankie, two masters of "the game." With the easy facility of a veteran vaudeville team, they hone their various routines, making sure to keep their private lives separate. Roy is the obsessive one of the pair, forever swallowing pills to stabilize his disorders, zoning in on the dirt that lurks in the carpet, and squirreling away his share of the team's take. Frankie scatters his money freely and is constantly on the prowl for more of everything. When Roy discovers that he is the father of a 14-year-old daughter who is interested in the family business, it just might be the wedge that drives the team apart. By the time the final con is played, we recognize that we're in the hands of yet another master of "the game." The film adaptation starring Nicholas Cage and directed by Ridley Scott, scheduled for release next summer, should serve to hype what is already a winner. For all public libraries.
Bob Lunn, Kansas City P.L., MO Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
