Thick as Thieves

by Patrick Quinn

Mackin is a thief's thief, a real professional, the kind of guy Chicago mobster Frank Riles refers to as "a stand-up badass." What else can you say about a crook who keeps his income tax forms scrupulously in order and his money in Swiss bank accounts, and makes a bank job look like a trip to the convenience store? If he pulls, a job, it's big, it's clean, and it's on the weekend, because that's when he likes to work.

When Riles taps Mackin to pull a heist involving $250,000 in food stamps, for a guy named Pointy Williams, he's asking a favor. Mackin's got a bad feeling about this job - he doesn't know the crew, and it's too rushed for his tastes, but when a "made man" asks you for a favor, you try to oblige. But Pointy tries to cheat Mackin out of his cut, and Mackin has to shoot two dirty cops to get out of town alive. Now he's got blood on his hands, a dogged detective named Petrone on his trail, and revenge on his mind.

As Mackin plots vengeance, Pointy escalates the war while Chicago mob bosses watch from the shadows, ready to eliminate anyone who threatens the smooth running of their lucrative enterprises.

Genres: Crime

242 pages, Hardcover

First published January 31, 1995

About the author

Patrick Quinn is a writer of thriller fiction. His first novel, "Thick As Thieves," was published in 1995. In 2000, it was made into a movie by HBO Productions.

Quinn lives in Lawrence, Kansas and is presently completing his second book.

Reviews

[Philo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful crime-fiction. We’ll-developed characters, fast-moving plot line, tight writing style. I loved it. Highly recommend.

[Zefyr · Rating 2 out of 5]

A decent quick crime/revenge novel, but not something to go out of the way for. It's predictable, except where it's so vague that I kept flipping back to figure out if I missed something: are we in Chicago still? Why are the stolen food stamps suddenly worthless just because the framed guy got away? How does two dead cops chalk up to the worst cop killing in Chicago history? Is it because it wasn't actually in Chicago but Quinn couldn't make it clear? The book would have benefited from being a smidge longer in order to be a smidge clearer, but that wouldn't have fixed the main problem, which is the shallow-as-raindrops main character. It was pretty impressive how much plot Quinn stuffed in to under three hundred pages; it would have been nice with a simpler plot and just a hair more depth in...really, any of the characters at all.