Author: Lou Berney
Year Published: 2018
Genre: Adult fiction
Pages: 299
Rating: 4 out of 5
Location (my 2019 Google Reading map): USA (LA, OK, TX, NM, AZ, NV, CA)
FTC Disclosure: I was given this book for TLC Book Review
Summary (from the back of the book): Frank Guidry’s luck has finally run out.
A loyal street lieutenant to New Orleans’ mob boss Carlos Marcello, Guidry has learned that everybody is expendable. But now it’s his turn—he knows too much about the crime of the century: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Within hours of JFK’s murder, everyone with ties to Marcello is turning up dead, and Guidry suspects he’s next: he was in Dallas on an errand for the boss less than two weeks before the president was shot. With few good options, Guidry hits the road to Las Vegas, to see an old associate—a dangerous man who hates Marcello enough to help Guidry vanish.
Guidry knows that the first rule of running is "don’t stop," but when he sees a beautiful housewife on the side of the road with a broken-down car, two little daughters and a dog in the back seat, he sees the perfect disguise to cover his tracks from the hit men on his tail. Posing as an insurance man, Guidry offers to help Charlotte reach her destination, California. If she accompanies him to Vegas, he can help her get a new car.
For her, it’s more than a car— it’s an escape. She’s on the run too, from a stifling existence in small-town Oklahoma and a kindly husband who’s a hopeless drunk.
It’s an American story: two strangers meet to share the open road west, a dream, a hope—and find each other on the way.
Charlotte sees that he’s strong and kind; Guidry discovers that she’s smart and funny. He learns that’s she determined to give herself and her kids a new life; she can’t know that he’s desperate to leave his old one behind.
Another rule—fugitives shouldn’t fall in love, especially with each other. A road isn’t just a road, it’s a trail, and Guidry’s ruthless and relentless hunters are closing in on him. But now Guidry doesn’t want to just survive, he wants to really live, maybe for the first time.
Everyone’s expendable, or they should be, but now Guidry just can’t throw away the woman he’s come to love.
And it might get them both killed.
Purchase Links: HarperCollins | Amazon | Barne
There are a bunch of characters, which took me a bit of sorting out at first. Charlotte and her two kids are characters whom I could sympathize with and care about. She is running from a bad marriage with no real direction and doesn't realize what she's gotten herself into when she joins forces with Frank. And Frank. He's done so many bad things in his lifetime as have all the other mobster-associated characters in this novel. Killing is second nature; it's part of the business and that doesn't really fit with Charlotte.
A romance in the middle of running away from mob killers? Why not. Actually, it softens the book a bit, which it needs since there's quite a lot of blood, violence, and killing. It is the mob after all. I quite liked this story especially since the author included an epilogue so we get to know a bit about where the characters end up.
Challenges for which this counts:
Review Tour:FTC Disclosure: I was given this book for TLC Book Review
Summary (from the back of the book): Frank Guidry’s luck has finally run out.
A loyal street lieutenant to New Orleans’ mob boss Carlos Marcello, Guidry has learned that everybody is expendable. But now it’s his turn—he knows too much about the crime of the century: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Within hours of JFK’s murder, everyone with ties to Marcello is turning up dead, and Guidry suspects he’s next: he was in Dallas on an errand for the boss less than two weeks before the president was shot. With few good options, Guidry hits the road to Las Vegas, to see an old associate—a dangerous man who hates Marcello enough to help Guidry vanish.
Guidry knows that the first rule of running is "don’t stop," but when he sees a beautiful housewife on the side of the road with a broken-down car, two little daughters and a dog in the back seat, he sees the perfect disguise to cover his tracks from the hit men on his tail. Posing as an insurance man, Guidry offers to help Charlotte reach her destination, California. If she accompanies him to Vegas, he can help her get a new car.
For her, it’s more than a car— it’s an escape. She’s on the run too, from a stifling existence in small-town Oklahoma and a kindly husband who’s a hopeless drunk.
It’s an American story: two strangers meet to share the open road west, a dream, a hope—and find each other on the way.
Charlotte sees that he’s strong and kind; Guidry discovers that she’s smart and funny. He learns that’s she determined to give herself and her kids a new life; she can’t know that he’s desperate to leave his old one behind.
Another rule—fugitives shouldn’t fall in love, especially with each other. A road isn’t just a road, it’s a trail, and Guidry’s ruthless and relentless hunters are closing in on him. But now Guidry doesn’t want to just survive, he wants to really live, maybe for the first time.
Everyone’s expendable, or they should be, but now Guidry just can’t throw away the woman he’s come to love.
And it might get them both killed.
Purchase Links: HarperCollins | Amazon | Barne
Review: It took me a few days to get going on this book, but not because it isn't good. My daughter was home from college so I only read right before going to bed and then I'd just fall asleep.
A romance in the middle of running away from mob killers? Why not. Actually, it softens the book a bit, which it needs since there's quite a lot of blood, violence, and killing. It is the mob after all. I quite liked this story especially since the author included an epilogue so we get to know a bit about where the characters end up.
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