Ghostman by Roger Hobbs

Ghostman

Author: Roger Hobbs

Publisher: Knopf

Publication Date: February 12, 2013

Format: eBook (also available in Hardcover, Paperback, and Audio)

Source: Local Library

327 Pages

Book Description(from Goodreads)

Stunningly dark, hugely intelligent and thoroughly addictive, Ghostman announces the arrival of an exciting and highly distinctive novelist.

When a casino robbery in Atlantic City goes horribly awry, the man who orchestrated it is obliged to call in a favor from someone who’s occasionally called Jack. While it’s doubtful that anyone knows his actual name or anything at all about his true identity, or even if he’s still alive, he’s in his mid-thirties and lives completely off the grid, a criminal’s criminal who does entirely as he pleases and is almost impossible to get in touch with. But within hours a private jet is flying this exceptionally experienced fixer and cleaner-upper from Seattle to New Jersey and right into a spectacular mess: one heister dead in the parking lot, another winged but on the run, the shooter a complete mystery, the $1.2 million in freshly printed bills god knows where and the FBI already waiting for Jack at the airport, to be joined shortly by other extremely interested and elusive parties. He has only forty-eight hours until the twice-stolen cash literally explodes, taking with it the wider, byzantine ambitions behind the theft. To contend with all this will require every gram of his skill, ingenuity and self-protective instincts, especially when offense and defense soon become meaningless terms. And as he maneuvers these exceedingly slippery slopes, he relives the botched bank robbery in Kuala Lumpur five years earlier that has now landed him this unwanted new assignment.

As you can see from many of my previous reviews I read mainly fantasy and (recently) horror.  A few weeks ago I started watching The Blacklist and quickly became addicted to it.  Being the reader that I am, I wondered if there were any books out there similar to it.  A quick Google search brought up Ghostman several times. I do not read many thrillers but since I was so intrigued by The Blacklist I checked out Ghostman from my public library’s Overdrive catalog and decided to give it a try.

I liked the concept of the “ghostman”, someone who for all intents and purposes does not exist.  We do not even know his real name.  He uses the name “Jack”, one he last used five years ago in a foreign bank job that went bad.  That job has come back to haunt him as his old “jugmarker” has asked him to repay a favor and give him the opportunity to wipe the slate clean by cleaning up a casino robbery gone bad.

The level of detail in this book is outstanding.  I work in the technology sector and I appreciate detail.  Some readers do not like loads of detail but I am just the opposite, I love to “get in the weeds” so to speak and wallow in the details.  I was really able to immerse myself in the story with the detailed descriptions of the inner working of banks, armored car deliveries, guns, and the different identities that “Jack” created.

I am not sure if this section is in the hardcover addition but my favorite part of the book was the “Autobiography of the Ghostman”.  That brief section was almost as good as the entire book.

I really enjoyed Ghostman and I think I am going to broaden my reading horizons and read more thrillers, especially if I can find more like this.  Hopefully we will see more of this character in future books by Roger Hobbs.