The Deal Goes Down

Tony Casella #4

by Larry Beinhart

A legendary, Edgar-Awarding winning writer returns with a gripping thriller about blackmail, skiing and the deep state...

Ex-private eye Tony Casella lives in the Catskill mountains, a lonely old tough guy whose body can no longer do what it once did. His wife and son are dead; his daughter barely talks to him; his bank is threatening to repossess his house. But a chance encounter with a rich young woman on a train changes everything. He is hired to kill her superrich, Jeffrey Epstein-ish husband. That job leads to others and he joins a small start-up whose mission is to save women from abusive marriages—and make a tidy profit to boot.

Tony’s problems seem to be over, but are they? An old, angry associate is determined to get his cut of Tony’s earnings, murky government agents start to tail him, and when he sent to the Austrian alps to kill a Russian oligarch and rescue his American wife, all hells breaks loose…

Packed with action The Deal Goes Down is an unforgettable portrait of a Lion in Winter who still has a few tricks up his sleeve, from a writer garlanded with awards and critical acclaim.

Genres: Thriller, Mystery, Fiction, Mystery Thriller

288 pages, Hardcover

First published August 9, 2022

About the author

Larry Beinhart is an Edgar Award-winning author whose American Hero became the movie Wag the Dog."

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Larry Beinhart is a must read for anyone who likes intelligent , funny, thoughtful, semi-meta, crime/thriller fiction. And sexy stuff to boot. Beinhart is one of those gems whose every book is well written, different, and just plain interesting. And he is a great story teller—did I mention that. This book about a killer for hire who gets wrapped up in all kinds of foreign and domestic spy/political and criminal enterprises is just great fun. And there’s some deep stuff too but not too much to derail the story. Read this book and read his others. They’re all great. Discover him-do yourself a favor.

[Kate Ayers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, and very different. Tony Casella is a retired PI. Somehow he gets caught up in a murder-for-hire scheme. Maybe he's bored, or maybe he believes the target really needs to die, but Tony wants to take care of business. Does he, though? How things happen, well, leave doubt.

[Carolynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tony Casella is an ex-private eye whose best days are behind him. He ends up entangled in a murder-for-hire plot through a chance encounter on a train. As he tries to tie up the situation without actually having to murder anyone, he gets drawn deeper into outlandish schemes and even foreign espionage. Tony Casella is a fun character to spend time with, and there is a lot of humor in the book. This is the first book I have read from Larry Beinhart, but I think I'll spend some time checking out his books after reading this one. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

[Ken Oder · Rating 3 out of 5]

The plot is fascinating when it's allowed to progress. Unfortunately the author loads it down with pontificating about life disguised as sardonic wit. Beinhart, famous for Wag the Dog, has a big ego, and it gets in the way of telling a good story. It got to be too cute for me when the protagonist, a close friend of Beinhart himself in the story, repeatedly quotes him and relates gems of wit and sarcasm learned from him. When you become a character you admire in your own book, it's maybe time to take a step back to avoid becoming an arrogant bore. But as I said, the basic plot line of the story is interesting and worth the read, despite the author's preoccupation with himself.

[Joe Raimondi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent read, some chapters were useless but overall an entertaining story. I enjoyed the story as a whole but found some pages and chapters to be completely pointless, possibly the authors attempt to be funny or add depth to the story but honestly it fell flat for me and there were some chapters I found myself just wanting to skip. The plot as a whole is great and definitely worth the read.

[Larry H · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

In Larry Beinhart's new book, a retired detective finds chaos after a random meeting on a train.

“The woman on the train asked me to kill someone. I liked the train. I didn’t especially like the woman.”

Tony is an ex-private eye living a fairly solitary life in the Catskills. His house is about to be foreclosed upon, and it seems like more of his friends are dying than he'd care to think about.

He meets a young woman on a train to New York City. She proceeds to drink a few cocktails and then she tells him how her wealthy husband is abusive and cruel. As they progress further on the trip, she offers him money—a lot of money—to get rid of her husband.

Tony knows he shouldn’t have anything to do with this, and figures when the woman sobers up she’ll forget they even had the conversation. But she doesn’t, and the money she’s offering could help him get control of his life.

Of course, he has no idea what a web he’ll wind up getting tangled in, including an attorney who wants to hire Tony to “take care” of other abusive husbands of wealthy women, a former business associate who wants a cut of the money, and federal agents. And that’s even before he has to travel overseas to rescue a woman.

I picked up this book because I liked the cover and the description. I didn’t realize that this was the fourth book in a series, so I definitely felt I was missing some pieces. And I felt like the plot took some strange tangents every now and again. But Tony is a fascinating, complex, flawed character, and I’d be interested in starting the series from the beginning.

See all of my reviews at itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blogspot.com.

Follow me on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/getbookedwithlarry/.

[Leane · Rating 2 out of 5]

At times compelling, this novel also annoyed me. I admit, at first, Tony, our URN (Unreliable Narrator) intrigued me. But as the narrative unfolds, the author lost me a few times even when painting a picture of an older man dealing with his aging body, his financial insolvency, and past sins. His background as a PI and other career choices gives him the cred he needs for the reader to understand why he would get away with what he does. He is certainly a layered CH and his take on this tale withholds almost what he needs to portray himself as much as victim as predator. Almost. The other CHs painted with his brush run to an array from savvy innocent to psychopath. As short as this book is, I feel it could have used better editing—was CH 16 even necessary? And Tony’s ramblings do not always serve the Story. The Plot is serpentine, sometimes innovative, the Pace is aided by short chapters, lots of dialogue, even with the aforementioned digressions. Setting details are adequate and set up scenes nicely. All in all, my sense of the author (also a CH of sorts and name checked far too much) is that he knows how clever he is and I’d rather learn this on my own without seeing the strings on the puppets. Twist at the end was nicely, done even if much of the premise of the Plot strained reality. Will not search for the others with this CH but maybe I'd have enjoyed this more if I had read them. Red Flags: Violence; Vulgar language

[Mary Thomas Watts · Rating 5 out of 5]

I always look forward to the next Larry Beinhart novel, and this one was worth waiting for.

[Doug Yonce · Rating 4 out of 5]

What starts out as a simple murder-for-hire novel soon multiplies in its complexity as the protagonist is pulled in to far more than he anticipated. A master of character and plot development, the author has another great story to tell. I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley and the publisher and voluntarily provided an honest review.

[Bookreporter.com Mystery & Thriller · Rating 5 out of 5]

For most of his life, Tony Cassella was a private investigator and was actually pretty good. He only recently retired, leaving him a man at loose ends. He lives in a house up a dirt road in the Catskills with his two cats, since his wife and son died. He also has a daughter, but she wants nothing to do with him. To top it off, the bank is getting ready to foreclose on his home, which is basically the only thing he cares about anymore, if you don’t consider the furry terrors that keep him company.

So it’s understandable if Tony is depressed. Maybe that’s why he says yes when Madelaine, a woman he barely knows, asks him to kill her husband. She approaches him while he’s riding a train to a funeral. Tony supposes things could be worse, but he’s not sure how. Agreeing to her crazy plot was just nuts, though. He’ll call her and tell her no.

After some arguing back and forth --- with himself --- Tony decides to do a little further research. After all, it pays not to be hasty. Besides, he really needs the money. A plan begins to form. It involves an upcoming charity party and a clever hook for the target. He swears it’s just exploratory, but things kind of go awry. Still, Madelaine seems okay with how it turns out and moves on. Her “backer,” Liz, is interested in taking their “partnership” to new heights. Now Tony has two women with ideas about how he should kill husbands whom they define as very bad men. This is not what he signed up for. Is it?

When Liz suggests that he check out a Russian oligarch who frequently abuses his wife, Tony balks. For one thing, there’s no way he can possibly get near the man with all of his bodyguards. Plus, pulling off anything shady in Russia would be incredibly risky. Don’t worry, Liz explains, he doesn’t have to go to Russia. In fact, he’ll just go on a lovely ski trip to Austria, where the couple plans to vacation for two weeks. Okay, but that still leaves the problem of the bodyguards. No big deal, Tony can work that out later. For now, he’ll go to Austria and scope out the job, if for no other reason than he enjoys skiing in the Alps. What happens after that is up for interpretation.

Tony Cassella is a moral man, despite how it might seem. He has a code. He’s a tough, ethical, sensical, logical and very human being. The human part is what gets him into trouble. However, he is very likable, even though he presents a somewhat antisocial, cranky façade. His capers in THE DEAL GOES DOWN are truly like no other in literature. He pulls off problem-solving in a way not seen before. The man is slick. So is author Larry Beinhart, who, as a matter of fact, has a decent-sized role of his own in this book. It’s good to have Tony back. Let’s hope he never retires again.

Reviewed by Kate Ayers

[Carey Calvert · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Deal Goes Down is the first Beinhart (Wag the Dog) book I’ve read. I call him Beinhart because that’s how he refers to himself as one of the characters in this entertaining noir full of witticisms and murder, and a bleak, yet compelling picture of an industry in which I’m familiar.

In his dedication, Beinhart (the author, not the character), tells us early on there will be “real people strolling through fiction as we all like to do,” thereby setting us up for pathos we should see coming but don’t.

Perspective and point of view determines what you see.

Tony Casella is back.

According to an interview with Writer’s Digest, the ‘why’ is in “credentials.”

“I decided to go back to the beginning. A detective novel.”

Casella, now 70 and still reeling from the loss of his wife and son; to him, in a not-so-distant past – “people are starting to die all around him – not from violence, from disease, degeneration, and inevitability,” and on the way to a funeral of an old colleague …

“The woman on the train asked me to k** someone.”

“I like the train. I didn’t especially like the woman.”

These are the first three sentences of The Deal Goes Down.

How do you not fall in love with this?

Former PI Casella, last seen in 1991’s “Foreign Exchange,” is losing his home in the Catskills, and after a contentious affair with his bank, “I headed home, trying to figure out how to explain things to the cats.”

Of course, he takes the offer after some prodding (a lot of prodding), and of course, it’s the wrong move.

“Yet, here I was, playing it out, drawn to it somehow, and instead of doing the simple thing, walking away, I was trying to come up with a gimmick that would make it stop.”

It had so many ways to go wrong.

But what I learned of Beinhart has less to do with plot than with crisp and fabulous writing:

“Young men run on passion. Old men are filled with broken shards of memories. As if we’ve been looking at our lives in mirrors, all along, through all those years, lots of them forgotten, some lost, most of them broken, nothing really true or completely whole is left, just all those bits and pieces, sharp edges, and silver peeling off the backs. That’s all there is.”

Forget what I said about pathos.

If Beinhart’s writing it, gimme all of ‘em.

[Steven Ramirez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Years ago, I saw Wag the Dog, a wickedly funny movie starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro. Hilary Henkin and David Mamet wrote the screenplay, based on a novel by Larry Beinhart. I’d never read this author’s work until now. And boy, am I glad I did.

It’s not every day you read a crime thriller with a seventy-year-old protagonist. Often, people that age are portrayed as quirky, talkative, and harmless. But not Tony Casella. This guy is still dangerous. And he doesn’t say all that much. Though he’d like nothing better than to save his house and enjoy the Catskills vibe, the universe isn’t having it. There’s work to do, and Tony is the man.

I enjoyed the writing style immensely. It’s terse, mordant, and sometimes downright hilarious. We’re talking about contract killing here, but this story was fun. Oh, and just when you’ve had enough of the east coast, we’re off to Austria for a ski trip. I don’t ski, but reading the author’s descriptions, I could almost feel the powder on my skin.

If you’re looking for a different kind of novel with plenty of bad guys, I recommend picking up The Deal Goes Down. Then, rent Wag the Dog.

[Mike Sennett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highly entertaining story about a retired PI (Tony Casella) who reluctantly agrees to a job as a hit man for a woman who wants her abusive (and quite wealthy) husband done in. That job, although seemingly a success, quickly spirals out of control as others get involved and/or want their cut. The situation escalates and the PI finds himself taking on another job in Austria to kill a Russian oligarch (or at least rescue the oligarch's wife and child), all the while being tailed by some shadowy US government types. Clever writing and interesting characters make this a fun read, even with an odd and somewhat abrupt ending. I also was amused by the author appearing as a minor character. Incidentally, I didn't realize that this was the fourth book in a series - it didn't really seem to be that dependent on the previous three (written over 30 years earlier).

[Andy Wormald · Rating 5 out of 5]

A new author to me so was not sure what to expect, however, what I got was a read of the highest quality, characters and story telling that leave a lasting mark

This is superb story telling, an intelligent and well constructed plot line, as you read you maybe fooled into thinking this is straight forward, however, the author cleverly draws out the plot and almost twists it on its head, wonderfully inventive, sprinkled throughout with humour, the author knows how to keep hold of the readers attention, injecting twists at the chosen moment.

I found the premis of the plot to be intriguing, the execution on the page even better

The character development, superbly draws out each character on the page, with that feel that gives them a realism. Tony Cassella is a likeable straight forward guy in need of money, when he meets Allison things unexpectedly change, as an unlikely a pairing as you could meet, and yet they compliment each other perfectly

For me the whole book had a feel of the 40s and 50s classic American Noir, it is not a straight forward crime novel, slightly offbeat, but certainly on point in terms of entertaining, you can almost picture the scenes in your head

This is an engaging read, your’e drawn straight in from the opening pages, there is an urgency to know what is going to happen, not necessarily what you expect, this is where the writing and the plot shine through.

Classic crime caper, that takes the modern day with a seamless nod to the past

I will be checking out the authors previous works, wonderfully vibrant and refreshingly different, highly recommend 5*

[Saundra · Rating 5 out of 5]

A captivating, funny, compelling story about a retired 70-year old private eye who lives alone with 2 cats in the Catskill Mountains at the end of a lonely road. His wife and son are dead, his daughter wants nothing to do with him, and the bank is foreclosing on his house. Tony Casella admits he can no longer do what he once did, but that doesn't stop him from trying when he's approached on a train to kill a woman's husband. Credit to the music business with titles and lyrics, using Larry Beinhart as a character, and hilarious riffs on women and life throughout the novel from the author who wrote American Hero (Wag the Dog), No One Rides for Free, and The Librarian.

[Susan Ovans · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the cover blurbs for this novel states that Beinhart always "deals the full deck" in terms of characters, pacing, and storytelling, and this is true of this novel. There's too much philosophy of life from our 70-ish narrator, a reluctant assassin, but that's a minor quibble with this fun read.
I can never decide whether 3.5 stars should be rounded up or down. I rounded up in this instance, just because. Although now that I think on it, I probably should have rounded down because I found the author having included himself as a character and gratuitously name-dropping himself entirely de trop.

[Capt-john · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very fast moving, with a very interesting cast of characters. As I live in the NY City area, the geographic descriptions were vivid. If anyone is inspired to become a writer, this is the way to write. The main character is , well for a lack of a better description, just that, a real character !!! Hope folks who wish to read this book will enjoy it as much as I have after they have read it. Great storyline, lots of action.

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the idea of this story, especially when I realized that the protagonist was approximately my age. The plot moved incredibly fast and was so well written that the reader just flies thru it. This will be a short review because I need more time to think about it, mainly because the denouement just raced up rather suddenly. However I can state with a fair amount of confidence that we will be hearing about this septuagenarian again sometime soon.

[Hobart · Rating 4 out of 5]

★ ★ ★ 1/2 (rounded up)
So I was never going to get this (and 45 others) properly written up, so I posted quick, tweet-length thoughts about some things that have needed reviewed for far too long:
A compelling, self-aware, action read. Really dug it, but not sure I’m 100% into the story’s wrap-up, but the denouement helped.

[Simon Gosden · Rating 4 out of 5]

A clever, literate thriller. A down on his luck, ex cop and one time private eye is travelling on a train to his old partners funeral. An attractive woman sits down on the seat opposite and within minutes she’s asking Tony to kill her pig of a husband. What follows is a breakneck plot, with a high body count. It’s humorous and very stylish. I loved it.

[jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. Some of the writing definitely had some weird descriptions that was very "male authors writing female characters" vibes, weird misogynistic sorts of views. But overall I liked the concept of an ex-detective turned contract killer and the thought processes he brought to it because of that. Did not realise this book was one in a series as per.

[Lizenbyl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ex-private eye Tony Casella living in the Catskills becomes caught up in a murder for hire scheme which is very successful which leads him to the next potential job. This is a fast moving funny book which is a very quick read.

[Andy Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a page-turner!

Beinhart writes with a literary flare that grabs you and never lets go. I was amazed at how his characters came to life and kept my focus and emotional involvement.

He is a surprisingly adept writer.

[Zach Rebackoff · Rating 3 out of 5]

In a way... Good.

Although interesting, I was troubled by too many pages of what I considered irrelevant to the story. my compliments however to the genius of the author's
imagination. 🙂

[David Webster · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant Action and Suspense!!

Larry Beinhart is the best writer on Earth. The plot, the characters, the twists and turns, the surprises, the action and the suspense - absolutely the best!!!

[Joanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a hoot, with clear homage to crime noir from the past. The main character was so likeable and funny, in spite of his actions, that I cheered him all the way. If there are more adventures to come, I’ll check them out.

[Joan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was great - tightly written, very fun characters, great locations (Hudson Valley, Austria and NYC). I'm delighted to have discovered this author who lives in Woodstock and works at Hunter Mountain.

[Lily · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think I see what Beinhart is going for. I found Tony very annoying, I think he's supposed to be a bit annoying, but his constant rambling and posturing got old. The meta stuff with Beinhart being a character also didn't work for me.

[Chuck Stanton · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF- Just not into characters or the story as 25%.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

OH YEAH! Great voice, great character, great story.