Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: Never Play Another Man’s Game by Mike Knowles

Never Play Another Man’s Game by Mike Knowles (ECW Press, 2012) is the fourth book featuring career criminal Wilson. When I found my copy on a give-away table at Bouchercon last month, I thought from the jacket description that the story might be similar to the Parker books by Donald Westlake writing as Richard Stark, and it is. I loved the tales about the professional thief with ice-cold water in his veins so I didn’t bother to put this book on the TBR stack, I promoted it to this week’s read.

When the story opens, Wilson is laying low, having crossed both the Russian mob and the police. He had to hastily abandon his long-term hiding place, along with some of his money and sets of ID, when the police located it. He recognizes that, while he has enough money to get by for a bit, he’s going to have to generate some revenue soon to help set up a new identity. This makes him seriously consider the proposal of an armored car heist that he otherwise would turn down because of the dubious nature of his would-be colleagues. But he needs the money so he fine-tunes the original strategy while bringing in a more reliable and experienced biker friend as back-up. The robbery goes off exactly as planned. The division of money, however, does not, putting Wilson even further behind than he was before the heist.

Wilson is clearly Parker’s brother from another mother. They are both preternaturally cool under pressure and believe in getting even instead of getting angry. Wilson is resourceful, quick-witted, and unscrupulous in his approach to problem-solving. His matter-of-fact brutality is as chilling as it is effective. He leaves a trail of bodies in his wake as he searches for his share of the swag.

Knowles has created some memorable characters to support Wilson in this rocket-fast adventure. His psychopath friend Steve is a full-time bartender and part-time killer, reminiscent of Mick Ballou in the Matt Scudder books. Ruby Chu is a gifted con artist who is always on the game, even when she claims not to be. But best of all is Bruce. Bruce is a nice guy but Bruce is also a human jinx. Nothing he touches prospers. Any gig he helps with is sure to fail miserably, so his criminal buddies hold him at arm’s length for fear of contamination. But he’s managed to turn this trait into a decent income: casinos hire him to sit near customers who are too successful. As soon as Bruce enters a game, hot winning streaks grow icicles. Bruce is a great fictional invention.

This is a fine piece of noir crime fiction, and I am looking forward to reading the rest of the series.

·         Hardcover: 217 pages

·         Publisher: ECW Press (May 1, 2012)

·         Language: English

·         ISBN-10: 177041097X

·         ISBN-13: 978-1770410978

Aubrey Hamilton © 2017
 

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal IT projects by day and reads mysteries at night.