Middleman: A Novel

by Brendan Flaherty

A soul-seeking family man pursues the American Dream through a series of comic nightmares involving Zoom calls, rental houses, and a narcissistic con man’s plot to rob the dead

Jake Flynn is an underpaid and overstressed remote worker feeling pulled apart by the demands of modern life and middle age. His parents need care. His young children need attention. And his burnt-out wife needs support. With his boss hounding him at all hours and the debts rolling in, Jake worries that he’ll never be able to give his family the home and stability they deserve.

When they move into a new rental house, the neighbors only make things worse. There’s Edwina, the town historian with an increasingly strange newsletter hinting at a dark past. There’s her son, Eddie, a freewheeling aspiring artist hungry for easy money, erotic encounters, and revenge. And then there’s Trevor, a lonely 15-year-old whose desire to take care of his mother and little brother lands him in the wrong place at the wrong time.

At the center of their odd small town, there’s the old cemetery with three mausoleums containing beautiful treasures and hideous secrets. Unable to resist temptation, Eddie concocts a scheme to rob them of something valuable, and he manipulates Trevor and Jake to help pull it off.

Middleman presents a humorous, heartfelt, and unsettling account of an amateur heist gone wrong, the damning consequences of playing someone else’s game, and the human desire for both freedom and security in a world of uncertainty.

Genres: Mystery

304 pages, Hardcover

Published November 10, 2026

Reviews

[Kate O'Shea · Rating 3.5 out of 5]

Jake Flynn and his family have moved back to his childhood home to make a better life and be near his elderly parents. But along with some welcome old friends come people that Jake remembers less than fondly.

Eddie is Jake's neighbour and Jake remembers him as a troubled and troublesome teen. It seems that Eddie has not changed much.

But Jake is also his own worst enemy. Instead of working to help his situation Jake finds himself drawn into Eddie's less than lawful lifestyle. As well as having a boss he loathes he uses alcohol to get through life. Its not helping his job or his family life. Its only a matter of time until Eddie really gets him into trouble he can't get out of.

Middleman was a slow start and took some time to get going but it grew on me. Jake isn't particularly likeable and Eddie is a bit of an obvious crook - to everyone but Jake at least.

There are some confusing parts but by the end the story does come together with a satisfying end. I would recommend this book if you enjoy a family story with lots of twists that is a,little slower than your average novel.

Thankyou to Netgalley and Grove Atlantic for the digital review copy.

[Scott Blackburn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Flaherty really bled his soul onto the page with Middleman. An absorbing, heartfelt character study of a husband and father who is a self-proclaimed “ancient millennial.” The plot has plenty to praise, but I’m an absolute sucker for first person narration, quirky characters, and witty writing, and this novel delivers all three. I can’t recommend this book enough.

[Tory Hoen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brendan Flaherty is a gift to humanity, as are his books.

[BookCharmedLife · Rating 4 out of 5]

Middleman by Brendan Flaherty explores the lengths men will go to when backed into a financial corner. His novel captures the suffocating friction of moving backward to move forward. When protagonist Jake uproots his family from the sun-drenched ease of California to a gray, autumn Connecticut, the transition is fueled entirely by the modern desperation to buy his family a house of their own. Jake is willing to sacrifice his comfort—and potentially his morals—to give his family stability.

The narrative expands through a rotating cast of deeply flawed, intensely human characters whose desperation mirrors Jake's own. We encounter Eddie, a childhood friend turned ne'er-do-well who fancies himself an artist, (but who seems to be more con-artist), and Trevor, a local kid who gets dragged into the orbit of petty crime, all to help his mom keep afloat financially. We meet Eddie’s mother, Edwina, who seems to have a loose grip on reality, but whose local newsletter tends to be interesting and entertaining.

Mr. Flaherty’s writing balances on a spectacular tightrope: it’s funny in a morose way, capturing the domestic framework of a Family Circus cartoon if daddy suffered from depression and a drinking problem. The author earned quite a few genuine chuckles from me, weaving an incredibly distinct thread of snark through a narrative that handles heavy themes with a deft hand. As someone who has spent too much time exhausted by the daily grind in a job I dislike, the workplace commentary made me feel seen. I enjoyed this book.

(I received an Advanced Reader Copy of this book for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.)

[Kate | Date With A Thriller · Rating 4 out of 5]

A heist gone wrong mixed with dark humor and incredibly flawed (and unlikable at times) characters! A little slow to start, but I ended up really enjoying this one and I recommend checking it out! 👏

Thank you partner Atlantic Crime for the gifted ARC and eARC in exchange for my honest review! ❤️

[Sydney Moore · Rating 2.5 out of 5]

Thank you to Goodreads for hosting a giveaway for this book and the author for sending me a free advanced reader copy. Nothing was promised in exchange for this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for providing me an ARC of this book. An honest review was requested in exchange for this book, all opinions are my own.

This isn’t my usual genre, but the premise sounded interesting and it seemed like it’d have enough mystery and drama to keep me interested. I think that the thing for me with literary fiction books is that I have to really connect to the characters or plot to like it and that didn’t work with this one. You know how sometimes you just immediately love the main character? This was the opposite for me. From the moment Jake was introduced, I didn’t like him and really did not want to have to spend a whole book following him, but I don’t DNF books.

I just felt like Jake didn’t appreciate his wife and took his life for granted. He was also just so boring to me. I also hate when the MMC keeps information from his significant other because he’s worried she’s going to break up with him, but it gives someone else leverage over him. Like, I just don’t think there was a reason for him to not tell his wife that Eddie took a photo of him with topless women when he didn’t know what was going on. If he wasn’t a dirtbag, she’d know that he was telling the truth. It just felt like it was added to cause tension and not because it was realistic.

But honestly, the writing is what really did me in. None of the dialogue felt realistic and it was constantly taking me out of the story. One character would ask a question and the other would respond in a way that didn’t make any sense, like they were having two different conversations. And it wasn’t just one person, everybody was doing it. It was very distracting and annoying.

The plot wasn’t really that interesting and honestly, not much happened. I struggled to understand what the point of this book was because the plot wasn’t there and the characters weren’t likable or engaging. I wouldn’t recommend this book, there just was nothing really redeeming or worth it for me. I don’t think I’ll read another book by this author because it seems like his writing style just isn’t for me in any way, shape, or form. I didn’t rate it lower because even though I probably would have DNFed it, it was very forgettable, so I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I hated it enough for it to take up space in my brain.

[Jason Allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brendan Flaherty's second novel is a darkly hilarious, often sad, ultimately hopeful (maybe?) rendering of men in crisis. Specifically Jake Flynn, remote worker, aspiring suburban homeowner, the disappointing son returning to a central Connecticut rental home adjacent to a now-grown childhood frenemy. Flaherty goes hard into the soul-sucking despair of modern corporate work, the desires forced on us by a consumerist society, the aforementioned broken men and the women forced by fate or choice to deal with them. It's a brilliant depiction of a moment from which we can't seem to escape. There's a plot involving grave robberies and the cutthroat world of New England antique hunting, but the draw here is Flaherty's writing, his depiction of Jake and Eddie and young Trevor, the teenaged neighbor boy headed (maybe?) for the same fate as the men in his world.

I liked Flaherty's first novel, THE DREDGE, quite a bit. With MIDDLEMAN, he somehow levels up. I devoured this. You will, too.

[LP · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for the opportunity to read and review an advance copy of this book.

Enjoyed the writing style but it wasn't enough to give this more than 3 stars. The book started out great, but once the character of Eddie really came into the picture, the story was too over the top for me. I grew to dislike Jake's character and his actions so much that the story failed to keep my interest. In the end, I didn't particularly like any character.

[Carol Ann Tack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jake Flynn does a lot of soul-searching in this dark and sometimes comic story of an amateur heist gone horribly, horribly wrong. Smart and astute prose. I zipped right through it.
Thanks a million to Grove Atlantic for the galley.

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

DNF. Middleman sounded like the kind of crime caper that I would enjoy but I'm afraid I lost interest half way through mostly due to the unsympathetic characters and the meandering plot line.  
My thanks to Grove Atlantic and NetGalley for an advance review copy.