I’ve been a fan of Marcus Sakey’s since the beginning. His characters are complex and realistic, his plotting is fast-paced yet organic, and his language is never too clipped, nor too showy. The guy can just fucking straight-up write. But while I’ve always enjoyed his novels, there’s always been one thing missing, one aspect of his novels that has consistently kept me from being fucking howling-at-the-moon in love with his books.
With The Amateurs, I have no fucking reservations. But before I get into exactly what sets this shit apart from Sakey’s previous – admittedly very solid – efforts, let’s do that whole fucking plot description thing first.
Marcus Sakey’s The Amateurs is the story of four thirty-something friends who get together every Thursday at a bar to drink and hang out, to escape the constant drudgery that their lives have become. One day an opportunity arises that apparently none of them can pass up – a chance to rip off some inarguably bad guys for a lot of money. But when they crossed into the criminal world, none of them expected the stakes would be this fucking high…
Okay, so that’s about as fucking vague as a plot description gets but don’t worry about it. You should just know that this is like all the rest of the Sakey novels: average people with normal problems who get their lives rocked when they get themselves into criminal situations. It’s a great formula that has worked for him so far fucking brilliantly and continues to do so here. We get to know all these characters (not to mention a few bad guys as well) extremely well, Sakey consistently bringing the reader into the characters’ orbits by effortlessly tossing off that perfect detail to help you relate.
But unlike previous Sakey novels, this time out I never felt like he was holding back. With The Amateurs, I feel that finally Marcus Sakey is allowing his characters to make the tough decisions, that he’s not letting them off the hook to spare more sensitive readers. This is a thornier and, well, noir-ier novel than his previous efforts, and you better fucking believe that the Nerd is happy about that shit.
And I’m not just talking in how shit wraps up (though the ending is top-notch), no sir. You can just tell within a few pages that this world is a tough, cold world; that some characters will lose their souls and that other will lose their lives. Basically, there’s no doubting that this shit is fucking noir.
The Amateurs is the book I’ve been hoping Sakey would write. Not only is it his darkest book to date, it’s also somehow at the same time both his most ambitious and most intimate work. In other words, the guy keeps this shit up, won’t be long before he’s living up to all that “new Dennis Lehane” talk.
