Cash Landing

April 20, 2015
FBI special agent Andie Henning, a regular in bestseller Grippando’s Jack Swytek series (Black Horizon, etc.), plays a leading role in this tragicomic crime novel. In the heist of a bank transfer at a Miami International Airport warehouse, Ruban Betancourt, the head of an amateur gang that includes his coke-addicted brother-in-law, manages to bag more than $9 million in cash. The robbery goes off without a hitch, but that’s the last time things go right. The size of the haul attracts rival crooks, and Ruban must cope with the fallout from his henchmen’s greed and stupidity while keeping his role hidden from his wife, Savannah. Recently transferred from Seattle to Miami, Andie digs away at whatever small clues she finds, at one point going undercover in a seedy sex club. Beleaguered Ruban’s every move seems to backfire with money hemorrhaging and dreams evaporating. Those expecting the wit of the late Donald E. Westlake’s John Dortmunder caper series will be disappointed. Agent: Richard Pine, Inkwell Management.

April 1, 2015
Thieves fall out over a fabulous jackpot that somehow isn't quite enough to go around. The 1978 JFK-Lufthansa heist fictionalized in the movie GoodFellas set the gold standard for swag, but an unlikely trio in Miami has beaten that record. Without breaking a sweat, Ruban Betancourt, his softie brother-in-law Jeffrey Beauchamp, and Jeffrey's uncle Craig "Pinky" Perez have lifted $9.5 million from another unlucky Lufthansa flight. "Too easy," Ruban reflects apprehensively. Too true, since the thieves' troubles are just beginning. Pinky and Jeffrey chafe under Ruban's demand that they hide their shares of the loot instead of spreading it around; Jeffrey immediately starts to blow his take on cocaine, lap dances, and Rolexes he presents to hookers; and Ruban's unwillingness to tell his wife, Savannah, that he stole a lot of money ties him in a progressively tighter series of knots. The main problem, though, is that every single person the three reach out to, from the dreadlocked Cuban Ruban hires to scare Jeffrey into keeping a lower profile to the stripper who betrays Jeffrey to a gang of kidnappers, is less interested in maintaining the bonds of true friendship or honoring verbal contracts than in getting a piece of the action themselves. The climactic betrayal comes when Edith Baird, the mother of Ruban's ex-girlfriend, takes $200,000 to give Ruban custody of their daughter and then turns around to sell him out to FBI Andie Henning (Black Horizon, 2014, etc.) for an even bigger reward-but there's still half the story to run, none of the remaining moves either original or edifying. Andie's bridegroom, series regular Jack Swyteck, turns up in the last chapter to help slam the door on this zany, overlong caper. But it's hard to care which of these lowlifes ends up on top when they're all so despicable.

May 1, 2015
According to the FBI, in 2005 three masked men stole over seven million dollars from Miami International Airport, money that was headed for the Federal Reserve. Grippando takes that real-life crime and runs with it here. Ruban, half Russian, half Cuban, has lost his home and his business, so when the opportunity comes up to settle scores with the banking industry, he jumps on board. Unfortunately, his coconspirators are a motley crew; his brother-in-law, Jeffrey, is a cocaine addict; his wife's uncle, Pinky, is a career criminal with a penchant for violence; and Marco, their inside man at airport security, seems to have vanished. The heist goes off without a hitch, but before the dust settles, everyone is after the money, from local criminals to the FBI. Ruban manages to keep one step ahead, but his wife is suspicious, and his cohorts are complicating matters by dropping thousands of dollars all over Miami. Then the kidnappings start. This fast-paced, violent tale, which includes a cameo by Grippando's series hero, Jack Swyteck, recalls the caper novels of Donald E. Westlake.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)