Safe Hardcover – 27 July 2017

Outstanding

Good

Found the narrative sometimes difficult to get onto to as not read this kind of novel for a while and my fault! Probably as it stands in the genre of Ametican crime writing, which uses current criminal/ diverse street slang which is working class.

Perhaps one of the grittiest and most raw novels I’ve read in a long while. I certainly felt that spending so much time with a reformed drug runner turned double agent left me feeling exhausted..in a good way. There’s plenty of drama here but good, raw honesty in the way the characters are portrayed and even down to how they speak and to each other in particular.This is not the LA the tourist board would have you believe. It’s the mean streets of the drugs gangs and those where there is a large Mexican and hispanic population. The areas are those of the ‘projects’ where the poverty and social deprivation is everywhere, but it’s also where the heart and the humour of a people often lives too.It all feels very real and very threatening but it fast paced. Not the heist novel it’s billed to be though – I think it’s more than that. A raw honest look at the underbelly of the city – but not for the fainthearted!

Ryan Gattis became one of those years-in-the-making overnight successes with his novel All Involved, where Gattis tells us the stories of people involved directly or indirectly with the 1992 L.A. Riots. Safe is his follow up to this and it suffers from an identity problem I feel as the quotes on the front of the book seem to be tauting this as a hard and fast heist novel when it is something much more patient, inward and even tender than that.Safe switches between the characters of Ricky Mendoza Jr. AKA Ghost and Rudolfo Reyes AKA Glasses; Ghost is a safecracker who works as an officer of the court for many of the three lettered law enforcement agencies and most notably in the book, the DEA. He's called to crack a safe of the stash house they're hitting and has decided to steal any cash he comes across within the safe. Glasses is a gang lieutenant that is charged with tracking down Ghost and the stolen money.Listening to the Gattis interview on Writer Types and the outtake included on their Facebook page gave me much more of idea of what Gattis was striving for with the book and how he doesn't seem to be your typical thriller writer. I heard the interview prior to reading and it made me see how this wasn't the book described in the quotes. (I'd highly recommend listening for this and for Gattis's own stories.) It's almost more of a character study of two men from the same area who's lives have veered off in different direction with exciting scenes in it. I will admit to it taking time to adjust to the type of novel it is and that I felt like some of Ghost's chapters could've been cut down in the early going.Ghost is a fascinating character though and you fully feel the weight of what he is carrying with him. Glasses isn't quite as unique a character, but he too has a good backstory and provides a great change of pace at the times where Ghost's sections seem to have dragged a little.It's not often you'll get crime fiction with so much undisguised emotion at its core and I look forward to whatever Gattis present us with next.

Safe – A Modern Day Robin HoodSafe is the latest book from Ryan Gattis, set over 48 hours with a backdrop of the dark underbelly of Los Angeles and its drugs gangs. Gattis uses two voices to narrate the story, in the form of Ricky “Ghost” Mendoza and Rudy “Glasses” Reyes with a punk rock mixed tape giving the story an old school vibe. This old school vibe can be seen as an American version of Robin Hood, with guns, drugs, money and cancer running central to the story.Ghost is a reformed drug addict, who is now a locksmith, and safe cracker for the DEA, who when the story opens is cracking a safe of a major drug dealer for the agency. He has been left alone by the DEA agents who leave the scene as he cracks the safe, while they have gone he also removes a large amount of money, $887,000. Unfortunately, his car has been seen and the gang will be searching for him within a few hours. Glasses is sent by his boss to find the missing money and get it back, as he cannot be seen to be going weak with a sneak thief.What we get is the back story to why Ghost has taken this money, and he is not planning on keeping a penny for himself. As he drives to meet his friend who will pay off people’s mortgages for them as they are heading for trouble as the financial system is crashing. Ghost has become Robin Hood in his desire to help unfortunate people who will never know him, as he knows he is going to die, if the cancer does not get him then a bullet will.Glasses has his own private reasons for looking in to getting out of the drug trade, and he is not afraid to act covertly to further his interests. He is a husband and a father and he is getting desperate to escape the clutches of his boss and the violence of the drugs trade. He knows that leaving the gang culture and life is not easy and like a cancer will slowly kill you.Gattis’ uses vernacular language to voice the characters and gives it authenticity, and the narrative is better for it as this is a fast-moving thriller. Amidst the violence, there are touching moments of tenderness Ghost when he thinks back to Rose and Glasses when he thinks to his own family.This is a wonderful story, full of hope and tenderness, things not normally associated with a thriller, but this book is better for it. There are mutual definitions that could be used for the word safe, from where we see money and drugs, to something far deeper.Safe is a book that will live long in the memory.

LA's dark underbelly come to life. This book has it all, Gangsters, drugs, Cops and more. A story of redemption written in two first person perspectives. Characters were would and relatable. Enjoyed from start to finish.

A cracking read, holds the attention throughout. A heist story with a heart, superb characterisation.