Safe

May 1, 2017
One man’s decision to steal confiscated drug money propels this engrossing crime novel set in L.A. from Gattis (All Involved). When recovering drug addict Ricky “Ghost” Mendoza, a safecracker working with the DEA, gets called in for a job one Sunday, he decides afterward to take some of the recovered money—a stash belonging to drug lord Rooster—and use it to anonymously help friends pay off debts. Ghost’s cancer is back, so this is his last chance at redemption for the sins of his previous life. The certainty of death turns Ghost into a fearless vigilante committed to stealing even more, regardless of the risks. Meanwhile, Rooster orders his second-in-command, Rudolfo “Glasses” Reyes, to retrieve the money and catch the thief. Unknown to his crew, Glasses is working with the DEA, supplying information in return for his family’s safety. Glasses must follow Rooster’s orders without risking his deal with the DEA or revealing his betrayal. Gattis’s refreshingly smart characters doggedly try to do the right thing in this satisfying if unrealistically upbeat tale about the drug world. Agent: Simon Lipskar, Writers House.

June 1, 2017
A safecracker tries to avoid a gang of drug dealers long enough to make one last score.Ricky Mendoza Jr., the hero of Gattis' sixth book (All Involved, 2015, etc.), is a safecracker with the nickname Ghost, which evokes both his secrecy and his mordant sensibility. As the story opens, he's determined to skim some money for "somebody who needs it" during a DEA raid of an LA stash house. This risks the ire of his federal employers but something even worse from the gangsters from Southern California and Mexico who spot him leaving the house with a suspicious bag. Rudolfo, the novel's second narrator, is a gangster who's watching Ricky but who has his own personal interests and relationship with the Drug Enforcement Administration to maintain. Between the two men, Gattis' novel is full of streetwise observations about the drug trade, from secretive communication methods to avoid wiretaps (sign language) to the cartel's cruel punishments for misbehavior (barrels, gasoline). But Ricky also has a tender side: he's a cancer survivor and recovering addict who can't shake the memory of his late girlfriend, Rose. (Throughout the novel he turns to a mix tape of old-school punk rock Rose made him.) Plus, the novel is set across three days in September 2008, just as the housing market is cratering, and Ricky is eager to provide some financial support to a few incipient Great Recession victims. The narrative back and forth between Ricky and Rudolfo is a bit out of balance--Ricky is clearly the better-drawn figure--and the prose gets soft whenever Ricky does. ("The world is going to be better off without any more of me in it, but it sure could have used a lot more of her.") But the tension about Ricky's fate remains steady to the novel's somber, surprising conclusion, which justifies the neo-noirish mood he cultivates. A moody yarn that cannily merges punk-rock world weariness and real-world criminality.

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Starred review from May 1, 2017
Gattis, who has written YA (Air, 2016) and adult fiction about teens (Kung Fu High School, 2005), here delivers a gritty L.A. crime novel about two men seeking redemption. Ricky Mendoza, Jr., or Ghost, is a cancer survivor and recovering addict who supplements his locksmith job by opening safes for the DEA. Sensing his cancer's return, he wants to make amends for his violent past and pay homage to Rose, the girl who got him clean, by ripping off both DEA and drug dealers and using the money to do good. Rodolfo Rudy Reyes, or Glasses, is one of the gangbangers Ghost rips offcomplicating Glasses' own attempt to get out of the life. Set in September 2008, during the subprime-mortgage crisis, Safe keys in on the people for whom the big-time wheeling and dealing was no mere abstraction; as Ghost makes the biggest score of his life, he reflects that it pales in comparison to Lehman Brothers' daily take. Though the grand gesture by a bad guy who wants to be good could play as hokey, here it's anything but. The criminal life is carefully rendered, the stakes are clear, and the characters' humanity is rich and refreshing. Undoubtedly informed by Gattis' research for his 2015 novel about Latino gangs and the L.A. riots, All Involved (2015), this is an emotionally rich page-turner whose devastating ending still offers a glimmer of hope.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)