Customer Reviews

A World of Thieves: A Novel

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As a big fan of Blake I was surely disappointed that he's covering the same ground as in the past and covered it better in the past. The same relationships exist between the characters, their careers and their women as in Red Grass River. The action passages offer some bright spots (loved the prison break), but they appear between cliche scenes and his desire to show you he's done his homework on all things 1920's (the egg in the radiator, song titles, ginger jake etc.) but what bothers me most is this piece just doesn't seem to have any soul. Here's to hoping the next one has some.

I'm a big James Carlos Blake fan and it is painful to have to give A World of Thieves a mixed review. If this book had been written by another author and I had not read Red Grass River, I certainly would be singing the praises of this book. However, I know that Blake can do much better and really all he has done with this book is rewrite Red Grass River, moving the setting from the Everglades to Angola Prison in Louisianna and West Texas.

If you are new to Blake, do yourself a favor and read Red Grass River or In the Rogue Blood and wait until this one comes out in paperback. I think Blake does a tremendous job in recreating the underbelly of past American eras. His characters tend to be people living on the edge, pushed to violence by the forces of society. Rugged individualists. People who will kill savagely without missing a beat. But also people who have a tender heart towards their families and even complete strangers. One minute the protagonist is holding up a mom and pop grocery--the next he is helping an old man change a tire along the side of a hot dusty Texas highway.

There are no easy answers or platitudes in Blake's books. Violence usually begets violence. And if you need happy, conventional endings, look elsewhere. But if you like to turn over a rock and see what's crawling underneath, then I can highly recommend Blake's work.

Instead of horses, they use cars and instead of swords, they have guns, but this picaresque novel harkens back to the swashbucklers of the past. It is a tale of a young man, his twin uncles and their life as armed robbers in the southwest of the 1920's.

All of the characters are interesting: the youthful protagonist Sonny with worldliness that belies his years and whose "nature" makes him an armed robber; the twins Russell and Buck who served honorably in the Great War, but chose robbery for the thrills (and the money); the women, whores, molls and accomplices; the "professional" criminals; and the implacable, violent pursuer. Some of these are stock characters, the criminals are all rather likeable and the prison guards sadistic, but the author handles then with a deftness that is never dull. The book is full of period touches and is probably an accurate picture of the time and place.

The only shame is that the heroes are criminals whose activities cost innocent people their lives. There is no justification for the crimes other than that it is what the La Salle boys want to do and that it is easier than working for the things they want. As one character opines, "Robbery is supposed to be risky. Otherwise everyone would do it." Sonny, Buck and Russell are charming, brave and funny, but they ARE criminals not noble fighters against tyranny. But, hey, it's a novel not a social science tract.

This is a book meant for film and the scriptwriters wouldn't need to change a thing. It was an enjoyable read, full of great scenes, memorable if not admirable characters, an evocation of a brief turbulent and violent time now quickly fading from memory. Well done, Mr. Blake!

It is cliche but A WORLD OF THIEVES is not James Carlos Blake's best work. The writing style seems flat or maybe controlled, not full of the vibrancy and literary energy of RED GRASS RIVER or IN ROGUE BLOOD. My best guess is that Mr. Blake decided to write a more subdued tale, a little quieter, more subtle than the others and it came out less passionate. A WORLD didn't win any book awards where both RED GRASS and IN ROGUE did, a fact which helps makes my point. But all this is only comparing Blake to Blake and Blake is the best. A WORLD OF THIEVES is still full of action and adventure and it brings to life the 1920's in Texas and Louisiana. You have roadsters and oil wells and speakeasys and boom towns and New Orleans and West Texas. The action includes fisticuffs (our hero is a champion boxer), prison escapes, gun battles and holdups. A particularly sinister villain adds menace to the tale. And there is a love story and a boy-coming-of-age story here as well. Plenty for the Blake fan. Not his best but still pretty good. I give it three and a half shotgun shells out of five.

After the death of his parents, a young, naive Sonny LaSalle gives up his education and career potential to follow his uncles' life of armed robbery and ensuing violence. When a bank robbery goes awry, Sonny is sent to prison. Though he gets a second chance, he never considers a lawful existence. He embraces his uncles' criminal code of conduct without question. He attaches himself to an abused woman he meets by chance. Though a likable character, Sonny achieves his limited emotional fulfillment from sexuality and violence.

This is a well written novel, reminiscent of Bonnie & Clyde. It is a study in loyalty and morality (or lack thereof) in the wilds of Texas and Louisiana in the late 1920s. It was a solid read, albeit one that was at times a bit depressing. Blake doesn't celebrate the violence - he reports it in writing that is crisp and spare, and develops characters that live on, long after the book is closed.

Whereas I enjoyed this book at the beach in a 3 day read --its pretty light stuff. Having read Handsome Harry I would recommend skipping this one and read a book based on fact instead. This as pure fiction lacks a certain creativity and leaves you thinking okay story okay action but simply okay. It uses many of the devices and story line that are present in Handsome Harry --but then Handsome Harry is a fictionalized account of an actual person and events.

"A World of Thieves" follows a family of armed robbers across Louisiana and Texas in 1928.

The novel tells the tale of Sonny LaSalle, an 18-year-old amateur boxer from New Orleans who graduates with top grades and should know better than to join uncles Buck and Russell robbing banks. He doesn't, though, and quickly ends up in Angola Prison Farm, a notorious penitentiary bordered by the Mississippi River that's guarded almost entirely by inmates. Sonny accidentally killed a cop in a Baton Rouge jail brawl -- the son of "John Bones," the state's most feared lawman. Bones does not take the news well.

The 296-page novel details LaSalle's extrication from prison and a subsequent crime spree across the two states as Bones relentlessly hunts him down. Blake's criminals are unapolegetic about their livelihood, making the jump from card sharps to con men to armed robbers to bank robbers. Sonny's uncles believe he's foolish for not using his education to better himself.

"'We figured you'd end up doing your thieving with law books or account ledgers. Like that.'

"I wasn't sure if they were joking. They looked serious as preachers.

"'World's full of thieves,' Buck said, 'but the ones to make the most money is the legal kind.'"

That's about as introspective as the book gets. Blake emphasizes carnage over character, leaving me dubious at one point about an act the LaSalles commit without hesitation or remorse. I didn't think they had it in them. They're in crime for money and thrills, killing only in the act of escaping jobs gone bad (another reviewer charitably describes this as "unintentional murder"). The whole novel's bloody and oversexed, with one particularly cringe-inducing crime of passion that leaves Buck nicknaming a part of his anatomy "Mr. Stump."

I loved the period details in the book: grimy hellish Texas boomtowns, Pierce-Arrow roadsters and Gladstone bags, revolvers, guns and pistols of wide make and utility. As a Texas native, I've been to several of the places in the book back when they still had a little frontier left in them. Blake covers the territory well.

"A World of Thieves" is crisply told, perhaps too spare in detail when it comes to the heads of its protagonists. I didn't see the ending coming -- a single-paragraph chapter that hits at the speed of a bullet.

It is cliche but A WORLD OF THIEVES is not James Carlos Blake's best work. The writing style seems flat or maybe controlled, not full of the vibrancy and literary energy of RED GRASS RIVER or IN ROGUE BLOOD. My best guess is that Mr. Blake decided to write a more subdued tale, a little quieter, more subtle than the others and it came out less passionate. A WORLD didn't win any book awards where both RED GRASS and IN ROGUE did, a fact which helps makes my point. But all this is only comparing Blake to Blake and Blake is the best. A WORLD OF THIEVES is still full of action and adventure and it brings to life the 1920's in Texas and Louisiana. You have roadsters and oil wells and speakeasys and boom towns and New Orleans and West Texas. The action includes fisticuffs (our hero is a champion boxer), prison escapes, gun battles and holdups. A particularly sinister villain adds menace to the tale. And there is a love story and a boy-coming-of-age story here as well. Plenty for the Blake fan. Not his best but still pretty good. I give it three and a half shotgun shells out of five.