The Deadly Kiss-Off

February 18, 2019
Set in an unspecified part of the American West, Di Filippo’s disappointing second caper thriller featuring disbarred attorney Glen McClinton and former arsonist Stan Hasso involves a far less ingenious get-rich-quick scheme than the one in its predecessor, 2018’s The Big Get-Even. When Stan gets a gig driving an 18-wheeler loaded with fake goods across the country, Glen joins him as his shotgun-toting bodyguard. The arrest of a counterfeit game console distributor leaves their employer, local mob boss Vincent “Weeping Ear” Santo, with a warehouse full of 5,000 bogus Intel microprocessors on his hands. In search for a new buyer for the chips, Stan turns to his former business partners in a harebrained venture that would have turned parts of a wrecked ship into jewelry. These partners, in turn, connect Stan with a professor who claims to have invented a new handheld explosives detector that requires microprocessors. The con, naturally, doesn’t unfold as Glen and Stan hope, and leads to an unsatisfying ending. Readers will hope Di Filippo gets back on track next time. Agent: Richard Curtis, Richard Curtis Assoc.

In this audiobook sequel to the enjoyable BIG GET-EVEN, antiheroes Glen and Stan concoct another scheme to get rich. Clearly, they have not learned their lesson about the consequences of dealing with mobsters. Narrator Keith Szarabajka has a way with dialogue that draws listeners into the story, making them worry about the main characters, even if they have slipped closer to being villains. Szarabajka's foreign accents sound genuine as Glen shows he still has a bit of a conscience while plotting to defraud a South American enforcer in a scheme financed by a murderous mob boss. For a disbarred lawyer, Glen is not that bright. M.S. � AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine