The Takedown - Tapa blanda

'Dismembered bodies and other nasty greetings begin to fall out of Quinlan's unhurried prose, which loops back and forth in time, and through soured deals and seamy scams' (Financial Times)

'Fresh from five years in prison for a pot bust in California, Dick Miller tries to go straight in his hometown of New York City in Quinlan's fine second thriller (after 2006's Smoked). Miller wants to parlay the skills he used in prison--typing--into a job, but instead gets roped into shady work by an old high school buddy who runs a lucrative chop shop. After having a few too many drinks one night, Miller discovers the dead body of his girlfriend, Dot Racine, in the trunk of his car. Miller has no idea who killed her; for all he knows, he may have done it and was too drunk to remember. It's not for a couple of days--! with Dot still in the trunk--that Miller finds out she had been stealing gobs of money from her employer and that lots of (Publishers Weekly)

'Quinlan is a confident storyteller who revels in twists and turns' (Metro)

'An artfully plotted yarn... Quinlan has something of Leonard's gift for making his amoral cast sympathetic, even lovable, though the real baddie, the bullet-riddled Nestor Garcia, is memorably nasty' (Telegraph)

'This is the stuff - violent, pacy, stylish and funny' (Mirror)

A fine second thriller. Quinlan brings to glorious life several offbeat, at times deviant characters from roads less travelled. The plot hurtles along like an express train to its smashing climax. (Publishers Weekly)

'A superb debut. A great crime novel. Brilliant is the word' (Independent on Sunday)

'Patrick Quinlan's follow-up to his assured debut... is a well-plotted New York thriller... Quinlan delights in wrong-footing the reader' (Observer)

'[F]ast-moving fun, with real bite...Quinlan brings us great, smart, hardcore stuff from the land of the free and the home of the crazy brave!' (Hobart Mercury, Australia)

Quinlan creates memorable characters and off-the-wall plots (Mail on Sunday)