I would love to be able to say that this book was the best book I'd read this year. That isn't quite true, but I knew from the first page on, that the book had potential to be extraordinary. We'll start there and work our way down.
The story, the concept, the arc - just wonderful. I was getting tired of "mafia" stories being about Russians and Albanians, and whatever. In Europe, you say Cosa Nostra, but somehow in the U.S. they're Mafia. The Russians and Albanians are brutal, uncaring, violent, bloody and nothing better than gangs. I was getting so tired of people romanticizing them and I was really pleased to see that Ms. Podger didn't do that. The dialogue in this book is realistic for the two personality types and the narrative is consistent.
The part that took away stars? The misuse of odd grammatical phrases and mis-spellings. There were sentences that needed editing and whole paragraphs that were filled with spelling errors and the misuse of words. Proofing and editing were not standouts in the production of this book. And yes, it DID take away from the book for me, not because there were "just a few" but because there were so many. Multiple times, I found myself re-reading a paragraph just to make sure that the error didn't cause me to read something incorrectly. That's frustrating for someone who reads as much as I do. Yes, I know errors get around everyone, and one or two you won't find me complaining about, but many and yes, I will.
Is it making me stop reading? NOPE. I've already read up to Book 6, so I have to say that is HOW GOOD the story is. Thank you Ms Podger for your imagination and your story-telling skills.