What do you think?
Rate this book
Valentine Pescatore #3
Rip Crew
Maverick agent Valentine Pescatore investigates a brutal killing that leads him across borders and reveals a vast conspiracy of wealth and power terrifyingly close to home.
Valentine Pescatore, the dashing ex-U.S. Border Patrol agent, finds himself back on American soil, investigating the merciless killing of a group of women in a motel room. At first, the crime seems to be a straightforward case of gangsters battling for territory. Soon, however, the motive is revealed to be much deeper and more sinister: a single witness who knows too much is being hunted, at any cost.
From an author who has been praised for his "pounding action scenes [and] ferocious prose style" (Marilyn Stasio, NYTBR), RIP CREW races at breakneck speed as Pescatore finds himself face-to-face with his most terrifying assignment yet.
Valentine Pescatore, the dashing ex-U.S. Border Patrol agent, finds himself back on American soil, investigating the merciless killing of a group of women in a motel room. At first, the crime seems to be a straightforward case of gangsters battling for territory. Soon, however, the motive is revealed to be much deeper and more sinister: a single witness who knows too much is being hunted, at any cost.
From an author who has been praised for his "pounding action scenes [and] ferocious prose style" (Marilyn Stasio, NYTBR), RIP CREW races at breakneck speed as Pescatore finds himself face-to-face with his most terrifying assignment yet.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published March 13, 2018
22 people are currently reading
655 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
April 4, 2018
If you have a book with a hero named Valentine Pescatore, you know you've either got a stinker or a hit. "Rip Crew" is a hit - its author exactly how to race a narrative at full speed! Here's my review:
https://openlettersreview.com/open-le...
https://openlettersreview.com/open-le...
March 16, 2018
U.S. Border Patrol
Department of Homeland Security
contract investigator
off-the-books assignment
Tecate motel
ten women shot execution-style
special interest aliens
Blake Acquisitions Group
Mexico
Southern California
Guatemala
Italy
Cartels
Mafias
Smugglers
Rip crew
We are dealing with fall guys and top guys, crews executing peoples and upper echelons suited criminals with powerful hands spreading far and wide, mucho dineras for bodies moved like cargo.
I liked this off the books contract investigator Valentine Pescatore and the whole investigation unfolded with gripping and nicely written narrative, insightfully entertaining , an addition to that great first season show The Bridge.
Scintillating, unrelenting, cinematic quality, and thrill that rises up in the right times in the story that has you thoroughly gripped in this world he has crafted upon the page.
Taut masculine potent prose with brevity when needed great descriptiveness and sentences when needed, bringing alive on the page culture, streets, cafes, peoples, mayhem and shoot-out scenes, and heart of darkness.
James Ellroy and Don Winslow come to mind when striking up similarities with the prose style and content.
https://more2read.com/review/rip-crew-by-sebastian-rotella/
Department of Homeland Security
contract investigator
off-the-books assignment
Tecate motel
ten women shot execution-style
special interest aliens
Blake Acquisitions Group
Mexico
Southern California
Guatemala
Italy
Cartels
Mafias
Smugglers
Rip crew
We are dealing with fall guys and top guys, crews executing peoples and upper echelons suited criminals with powerful hands spreading far and wide, mucho dineras for bodies moved like cargo.
I liked this off the books contract investigator Valentine Pescatore and the whole investigation unfolded with gripping and nicely written narrative, insightfully entertaining , an addition to that great first season show The Bridge.
Scintillating, unrelenting, cinematic quality, and thrill that rises up in the right times in the story that has you thoroughly gripped in this world he has crafted upon the page.
Taut masculine potent prose with brevity when needed great descriptiveness and sentences when needed, bringing alive on the page culture, streets, cafes, peoples, mayhem and shoot-out scenes, and heart of darkness.
James Ellroy and Don Winslow come to mind when striking up similarities with the prose style and content.
https://more2read.com/review/rip-crew-by-sebastian-rotella/
March 7, 2018
Hunger is a powerful thing.
Human trafficking a multi-billion dollar criminal industry.
The desperate, the criminals who exploit them, and the good that tries to help them.
A good character driven read. Valentine Pescatore is hired to investigate the murder of 10 women, illegal immigrants, that were being smuggled into the USA.
Leo Mendez, former Mexican police now turned journalist, is looking into what connection the Blake Group, a powerful US corporation, has to do with the murders.
The characters is what made this book. It's good too see government agents, local and foreign police, journalist, and the illegal immigrants themselves, working together to help stop the exploitation of the most vulnerable. Reading the brutality the inhumanity that illegals have to suffer through to make it to the USA or Europe is soul crushing.
I won this through Goodreads Giveaway. Maybe Goodreads could send a copy to Donald Trump.
Human trafficking a multi-billion dollar criminal industry.
The desperate, the criminals who exploit them, and the good that tries to help them.
A good character driven read. Valentine Pescatore is hired to investigate the murder of 10 women, illegal immigrants, that were being smuggled into the USA.
Leo Mendez, former Mexican police now turned journalist, is looking into what connection the Blake Group, a powerful US corporation, has to do with the murders.
The characters is what made this book. It's good too see government agents, local and foreign police, journalist, and the illegal immigrants themselves, working together to help stop the exploitation of the most vulnerable. Reading the brutality the inhumanity that illegals have to suffer through to make it to the USA or Europe is soul crushing.
I won this through Goodreads Giveaway. Maybe Goodreads could send a copy to Donald Trump.
July 31, 2018
Rip Crew
Mysterious Book Report No. 345
by John Dwaine McKenna
With all the rama-lamadingdonging that’s been going on over, under, through, around and about the southern border of our nation this MBR couldn’t be more timely.
Rip Crew, (Mulholland Books/Little, Brown and Company, $27.00, 322 pages, ISBN 978-0-316-50553-6) by Sebastian Rotella, begins in Guatemala where protagonist Valentine Pescatore, an undercover agent for a private security firm, is looking for a human smuggler named Chiclet. Chiclet, along with a group of tattooed, machete-wielding MS13-bangers, controls access to a rusty, ancient steam train called La Bestia: The Beast. Chiclet and his gang are there for the sole purpose of fleecing the illegal refugees and migrants headed north through Mexico, hoping to cling to the tops, sides and platforms of the wheezing old steamer long enough to cross into El Norte . . . the promised land . . . The United States of America. But in the first of many stunning plot twists, that’s where Chiclet just came from. He’s a witness to the massacre of several women in San Diego, California, where he and a pair of young girls are the only survivors in a case that’s drawn the entire worlds attention. It’s caught the eye of a high-ranking member of Homeland Security, and it’s she who’s hired Pescatores firm to investigate, using back channels to avoid publicity.
At the same time, Leo Méndez, a Mexican journalist forced into exile by death threats from the drug cartels and the crooked cops and politicians in league with them, is hot on a story of corporate corruption and malfeasance that stretches across several countries and multiple governments.
The two cases coverage, and the volatile American investigator teams up with the wary Mexican journalist to track down a massacre survivor and witness with an explosive secret that conceals a conspiracy reaching around the world. The hunt leads from the barrio to the boardroom, where the intrepid pair find the lines between mobsters and moguls has blurred, as the unlikely partners fight forces that can easily crush them. Rip Crew is one of the most intense thrillers of the year. It’s timely, it’s fast-paced, it’s propulsive . . . and it’s going to keep you reading late late late into the night!
Mysterious Book Report No. 345
by John Dwaine McKenna
With all the rama-lamadingdonging that’s been going on over, under, through, around and about the southern border of our nation this MBR couldn’t be more timely.
Rip Crew, (Mulholland Books/Little, Brown and Company, $27.00, 322 pages, ISBN 978-0-316-50553-6) by Sebastian Rotella, begins in Guatemala where protagonist Valentine Pescatore, an undercover agent for a private security firm, is looking for a human smuggler named Chiclet. Chiclet, along with a group of tattooed, machete-wielding MS13-bangers, controls access to a rusty, ancient steam train called La Bestia: The Beast. Chiclet and his gang are there for the sole purpose of fleecing the illegal refugees and migrants headed north through Mexico, hoping to cling to the tops, sides and platforms of the wheezing old steamer long enough to cross into El Norte . . . the promised land . . . The United States of America. But in the first of many stunning plot twists, that’s where Chiclet just came from. He’s a witness to the massacre of several women in San Diego, California, where he and a pair of young girls are the only survivors in a case that’s drawn the entire worlds attention. It’s caught the eye of a high-ranking member of Homeland Security, and it’s she who’s hired Pescatores firm to investigate, using back channels to avoid publicity.
At the same time, Leo Méndez, a Mexican journalist forced into exile by death threats from the drug cartels and the crooked cops and politicians in league with them, is hot on a story of corporate corruption and malfeasance that stretches across several countries and multiple governments.
The two cases coverage, and the volatile American investigator teams up with the wary Mexican journalist to track down a massacre survivor and witness with an explosive secret that conceals a conspiracy reaching around the world. The hunt leads from the barrio to the boardroom, where the intrepid pair find the lines between mobsters and moguls has blurred, as the unlikely partners fight forces that can easily crush them. Rip Crew is one of the most intense thrillers of the year. It’s timely, it’s fast-paced, it’s propulsive . . . and it’s going to keep you reading late late late into the night!
June 22, 2021
Solid international crime thriller. Rotella has some silly names for his main guys, Valentine Pescatore is the former US Border Patrol turned ops agent protagonist. There's a Porthos and an Athos as well. All really likable characters, just silly monikers.
Outside of my eye rolling on the names, Rotella delivers. Pescatore is asked by Isabel Puente--his former flame and now Homeland Security bigwig--to look into a massacre of African refugees in Northern Mexico. In doing so, Pescatore ends up working with former Mexico police officer turned journalist Leo Mendez, an old friend and colleague who himself has been fed a lead about an American business giant having their hands in the wrong cookie jars.
Rotella has a long history working in news and that experience helps add good depth which keeps the page turner from becoming too Hollywood. My only gripe was some pretty significant plot points in the third act get rushed a little. But it's a minor complaint. I look forward to checking out the previous editions of this ongoing series.
Outside of my eye rolling on the names, Rotella delivers. Pescatore is asked by Isabel Puente--his former flame and now Homeland Security bigwig--to look into a massacre of African refugees in Northern Mexico. In doing so, Pescatore ends up working with former Mexico police officer turned journalist Leo Mendez, an old friend and colleague who himself has been fed a lead about an American business giant having their hands in the wrong cookie jars.
Rotella has a long history working in news and that experience helps add good depth which keeps the page turner from becoming too Hollywood. My only gripe was some pretty significant plot points in the third act get rushed a little. But it's a minor complaint. I look forward to checking out the previous editions of this ongoing series.
April 14, 2018
I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway.
I don't read many politcal thrillers–or books written by men these days–so this was an interesting change. What made it better (for me) was the subject matter: I didn't know anything about "rip crews" and found it a pretty interesting look into that world (and copycats).
I haven't read other books in the series, but that wasn't an issue. I was able to get right into the world of Pescatore and Mendez. I liked the location shifts and the trials in their personal lives. It took me a while to get through the book, but mainly because I was busy in real life. The last section was fantastic -- very exciting.
As always with books I like, this should be a movie.
I don't read many politcal thrillers–or books written by men these days–so this was an interesting change. What made it better (for me) was the subject matter: I didn't know anything about "rip crews" and found it a pretty interesting look into that world (and copycats).
I haven't read other books in the series, but that wasn't an issue. I was able to get right into the world of Pescatore and Mendez. I liked the location shifts and the trials in their personal lives. It took me a while to get through the book, but mainly because I was busy in real life. The last section was fantastic -- very exciting.
As always with books I like, this should be a movie.
March 17, 2018
Rip Crew is my kind of book. As soon as I understood that it was dealing with human trafficking, money, drugs, and the people behind it, I knew I would love it.
The characters are well drawn and easily relatable which makes the story engaging and absorbing. Valentine Pescatore’s mission is to find out who killed ten female immigrants transported to the United States illegally. Along the way we meet a Mexican reporter who is investigating a large corporation and its ties to human trafficking. What follows is a sad, infuriating, and fascinating glimpse into human trafficking and the people who are doing it and those who are charged with putting the criminals behind bars.
The characters are well drawn and easily relatable which makes the story engaging and absorbing. Valentine Pescatore’s mission is to find out who killed ten female immigrants transported to the United States illegally. Along the way we meet a Mexican reporter who is investigating a large corporation and its ties to human trafficking. What follows is a sad, infuriating, and fascinating glimpse into human trafficking and the people who are doing it and those who are charged with putting the criminals behind bars.
April 15, 2018
Mr. Rotella's second novel has eluded me thus far, but I dove into this third effort soon after it crossed the arrivals desk. As usual, the action gets scattered about geographically, but the plot and causality hold together tightly and with authority. Rotella knows the real world and has plenty of contacts who help him with the messy details. One telling item about which I know a little from medical experience: someone gets shot eight times and survives. As described this makes plenty of sense and can be believed, although a clean headshot will do it, one shot, one kill. Luck and angles.
Altogether an enjoyable ride.
Recommended.
Altogether an enjoyable ride.
Recommended.
August 9, 2022
this is your basic summer international thriller, with evil capitalists, gun-toting henchmen, and a damsel in distress, having escaped a massacre in which she was the intended target. It is escapist material, but the author clearly knows his stuff, such as the uneasy relationship between the United States and Mexico--with Italy tossed in during the novel's middle section--and the movement of money around the globe. He crafts scenes of paranoia (many of the characters find themselves tailed in late model cars), shoot outs, and dialog that is in balanced with the expository sections. Good stuff! This I would classify as a beach read for guys.
January 5, 2024
A quick easy read, and great to see international communities working together to bring down the entitled elites of a corporate organisation in the US.
The storyline touches on a lot of subjects, including human trafficking, and the chase of connections in the case was engaging.
One of the things I really enjoyed about this book was the inclusion of music being listened to, references to other literature, and the bond between men over the years.
The storyline touches on a lot of subjects, including human trafficking, and the chase of connections in the case was engaging.
One of the things I really enjoyed about this book was the inclusion of music being listened to, references to other literature, and the bond between men over the years.
January 19, 2024
Eale estuvo bien!!
Mis expectativas eran muy bajas, porque una novela policiaca no llama normalmente mi atención pero esta me mantuvo entretenida en algunos momentos mas que otros.
Disfrute la narración de Valentine, aparte que las partes de acción eran mis favoritas muy interesantes, el final muy épico lo podía imaginar en la gran pantalla
Buena novela policiaca overall
Gracias por nuestro pequeño infinito
Mis expectativas eran muy bajas, porque una novela policiaca no llama normalmente mi atención pero esta me mantuvo entretenida en algunos momentos mas que otros.
Disfrute la narración de Valentine, aparte que las partes de acción eran mis favoritas muy interesantes, el final muy épico lo podía imaginar en la gran pantalla
Buena novela policiaca overall
Gracias por nuestro pequeño infinito
October 14, 2021
The potential was endless. The characters are all in place, visible...and...yet...
If u suffer from insomnia this is a must have. Apologies to the author but it is..lifeless. A great waste of potential. Prefer Harry Buckle's offerings, especially the newest, anytime f or a modern political thriller.
If u suffer from insomnia this is a must have. Apologies to the author but it is..lifeless. A great waste of potential. Prefer Harry Buckle's offerings, especially the newest, anytime f or a modern political thriller.
March 22, 2018
This book is not for me.
March 29, 2018
Fast enjoyable read
April 14, 2018
Not as promised
For me, the narrative did not flow. And the protagonists are not clearly defined
Promising but not getting there for me
For me, the narrative did not flow. And the protagonists are not clearly defined
Promising but not getting there for me
April 15, 2018
I enjoyed reading this. It is an intelligent, well written, international thriller. I needed a change of pace and this was the perfect solution!
May 20, 2018
Really good. Want to read his other books as well.
May 30, 2018
Better than many in this genre. Bit too much racing here there and everywhere but interesting characters and the plot moved along well.
wish-list-possibles
December 19, 2018I read the first in this series quite some time ago. Forget number two.
March 3, 2021
I couldn't put this book down. It was fast-paced and kept me interested right to the end.
Read
February 8, 2023Dnf
March 13, 2018
An intense tale of murder and corruption with high-ranked U.S. businessmen at its heart
This isn't usually the type of book I read but I enjoyed this detailed story of international intrigue, murder, conspiracy, and corruption that takes place around the globe - Mexico, the U.S., Italy, hints of sub-Saharan Africa, and many countries south of Mexico's southern border.
At the center of the story is Valentine Pescatore, ex- Border Patrol now working as a private/contract investigator working for Homeland Security through Villa Crespo International Investigations and Security.
Also at the forefront in the book is Leo Méndez, ex-Tijuana policeman and now respected journalist.
They are trying to track down who brutally murdered ten female illegal aliens from Africa along with their guards as they were trying to make their way to the U.S. through Mexico.
There was lots of action and a lot of detailed information about illegal aliens in countries OTHER than the U.S. Very interesting.
I highly recommend to readers that enjoy international thrillers.
I received this book from Mulholland Books through Net Galley in the hopes that I would read it and leave an unbiased review.
This isn't usually the type of book I read but I enjoyed this detailed story of international intrigue, murder, conspiracy, and corruption that takes place around the globe - Mexico, the U.S., Italy, hints of sub-Saharan Africa, and many countries south of Mexico's southern border.
At the center of the story is Valentine Pescatore, ex- Border Patrol now working as a private/contract investigator working for Homeland Security through Villa Crespo International Investigations and Security.
Also at the forefront in the book is Leo Méndez, ex-Tijuana policeman and now respected journalist.
They are trying to track down who brutally murdered ten female illegal aliens from Africa along with their guards as they were trying to make their way to the U.S. through Mexico.
There was lots of action and a lot of detailed information about illegal aliens in countries OTHER than the U.S. Very interesting.
I highly recommend to readers that enjoy international thrillers.
I received this book from Mulholland Books through Net Galley in the hopes that I would read it and leave an unbiased review.
Read
April 5, 2018This is a very smart thriller.
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews