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Outsourced
Following from his ultra-noir trilogy—Small Crimes, Pariah, and Killer—is Outsourced, Dave Zeltserman's most commercial book to date.
A classic heist thriller pitched somewhere between Ocean's Eleven and Dog Day Afternoon, it's the story of a group of software engineers who lose their jobs due to an industry push to outsourcing. Desperate, and seeing their middle-class lives crumbling apart, they come up with a brilliant plan to use their computing skills to rob a bank. But not even a systems analyst can foresee every eventuality, so the group falls afoul of the Russian Mafia...
Movie rights have been sold for Outsourced, and the film will be produced by the team behind the hugely successful Resident Evil films.
A classic heist thriller pitched somewhere between Ocean's Eleven and Dog Day Afternoon, it's the story of a group of software engineers who lose their jobs due to an industry push to outsourcing. Desperate, and seeing their middle-class lives crumbling apart, they come up with a brilliant plan to use their computing skills to rob a bank. But not even a systems analyst can foresee every eventuality, so the group falls afoul of the Russian Mafia...
Movie rights have been sold for Outsourced, and the film will be produced by the team behind the hugely successful Resident Evil films.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
2 people are currently reading
152 people want to read
About the author
Dave Zeltserman
102 books172 followersAuthor of the crime noir novel SMALL CRIMES named by NPR as the best crime and mystery novel of 2008, and by the Washington Post as one of the best novels of 2008, and made into a major film (to be released in 2017) starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Molly Parker, Gary Cole, Robert Forster, and Jacki Weaver.
Shamus Award winner for JULIUS KATZ. Ellery Queen's Readers Choice Award winner for ARCHIE'S BEEN FRAMED and ARCHIE SOLVES THE CASE.
PARIAH named by the Washington Post as one of the best books of 2009. THE CARETAKER OF LORNE FIELD (2010) shortlisted by American Library Association for best horror novel of the year and named a horror gem by Library Journal. MONSTER selected by Booklist Magazine for their 2013 list of top 10 horror novels and WBUR for one of the best novels of the year.
OUTSOURCED (2011) and THE CARETAKER OF LORNE FIELD are also currently being developed for film.
Shamus Award winner for JULIUS KATZ. Ellery Queen's Readers Choice Award winner for ARCHIE'S BEEN FRAMED and ARCHIE SOLVES THE CASE.
PARIAH named by the Washington Post as one of the best books of 2009. THE CARETAKER OF LORNE FIELD (2010) shortlisted by American Library Association for best horror novel of the year and named a horror gem by Library Journal. MONSTER selected by Booklist Magazine for their 2013 list of top 10 horror novels and WBUR for one of the best novels of the year.
OUTSOURCED (2011) and THE CARETAKER OF LORNE FIELD are also currently being developed for film.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 41 reviews
July 14, 2012
Who would ever suspect a group of geeky software engineers of pulling a bank heist?
Dan thought he'd thought of everything. The alarm was taken care of. He knew exactly what to go after. He chose a "crack team" to hold up the bank. But, there's always a loose cannon in the bunch...
When things go wrong during the robbery, (and really, when do they ever go right?), a chain of events is set into play that makes the book pretty hard to put down.
The build up to the big heist was a little slow, but things really took off after that. The characters were all individuals, not just variations of the same guy - and not too much back story on any of them, thank you! A little more comic relief might not have been a bad idea, though I did laugh out loud when one character said:
"Anyway, what did you expect?" he asked. "You invited me along and gave me a gun. Jeez, you should have known I'd do something like that."
By the time the Russian mobsters are preparing to interrogate their prisoners, making sure the plastic coverings are carefully in place first...I was completely hooked.
Crime usually doesn't pay, and it can occasionally be pretty freaking messy.
Dan thought he'd thought of everything. The alarm was taken care of. He knew exactly what to go after. He chose a "crack team" to hold up the bank. But, there's always a loose cannon in the bunch...
When things go wrong during the robbery, (and really, when do they ever go right?), a chain of events is set into play that makes the book pretty hard to put down.
The build up to the big heist was a little slow, but things really took off after that. The characters were all individuals, not just variations of the same guy - and not too much back story on any of them, thank you! A little more comic relief might not have been a bad idea, though I did laugh out loud when one character said:
"Anyway, what did you expect?" he asked. "You invited me along and gave me a gun. Jeez, you should have known I'd do something like that."
By the time the Russian mobsters are preparing to interrogate their prisoners, making sure the plastic coverings are carefully in place first...I was completely hooked.
Crime usually doesn't pay, and it can occasionally be pretty freaking messy.
July 29, 2011
Dan Wilson is a middle-aged software engineer. He's out of work; he's going blind, and then his wife gets laid off from her job as well. All in all, things are not going well.
Dan's last job of any consequence was designing the security system for a local bank. But then the penny-pinching bankers outsourced the writing of the software Dan designed to a firm in India. Dan is righteously angry and so decides to take his revenge and secure his family's future all in one fell swoop by robbing the bank in question.
Dan conceives a fairly ingeneous plan and recruits several of his friends to assist. They are all out of work software engineers as well and they eagerly sign on to the plan. As always happens in a book like this, things will inevitably go amiss; the law of unintended consequences will come into play, and in fairly short order, Dan has major problems.
I loved the premise of this book, but I was less satisfied with the execution. My main problem was that I didn't find any of the characters to be at all sympathetic, including Dan, whose situation should have made him enormously sympathetic. But I found that I couldn't root for him or anyone else in the book, and in the end I didn't really care what happened to any of them. In particular, the crew that Dan recruits consists of a bunch of hopeless misfits. I wouldn't think of trusting any of these guys to go along for a ride during which I planned to run a red light, let alone rob a bank.
Reading the book, I kept thinking of Donald Westlake. "Outsourced" sounds like a plot that might have worked well as one of Westlake's "Parker" series (written as Richard Stark), although if Westlake had written it, it would have been grittier and more believeable. Mainly, though, the premise of this book reminded me of Westlake's The Ax, in which the protagonist is also out of work and designs a criminal plan to save himself that is much more interesting than the one in "Outsourced."
This is not a bad book, and I'm sure a lot of readers would enjoy it more than I. Perhaps my expectations were simply too high.
Dan's last job of any consequence was designing the security system for a local bank. But then the penny-pinching bankers outsourced the writing of the software Dan designed to a firm in India. Dan is righteously angry and so decides to take his revenge and secure his family's future all in one fell swoop by robbing the bank in question.
Dan conceives a fairly ingeneous plan and recruits several of his friends to assist. They are all out of work software engineers as well and they eagerly sign on to the plan. As always happens in a book like this, things will inevitably go amiss; the law of unintended consequences will come into play, and in fairly short order, Dan has major problems.
I loved the premise of this book, but I was less satisfied with the execution. My main problem was that I didn't find any of the characters to be at all sympathetic, including Dan, whose situation should have made him enormously sympathetic. But I found that I couldn't root for him or anyone else in the book, and in the end I didn't really care what happened to any of them. In particular, the crew that Dan recruits consists of a bunch of hopeless misfits. I wouldn't think of trusting any of these guys to go along for a ride during which I planned to run a red light, let alone rob a bank.
Reading the book, I kept thinking of Donald Westlake. "Outsourced" sounds like a plot that might have worked well as one of Westlake's "Parker" series (written as Richard Stark), although if Westlake had written it, it would have been grittier and more believeable. Mainly, though, the premise of this book reminded me of Westlake's The Ax, in which the protagonist is also out of work and designs a criminal plan to save himself that is much more interesting than the one in "Outsourced."
This is not a bad book, and I'm sure a lot of readers would enjoy it more than I. Perhaps my expectations were simply too high.
March 27, 2025
(or is it Out-sourced? This is my Very Hyphenated (overly-hyphenated) Review:
Put down your silly-ass mysteries, your who-is-my-husband non-thrillers, and read Dave Zeltserman.
This book is very, very dark but not in the usual dark manner of noir fiction. It’s more of a dark look at the ruins of what was once the American dream which more and more belongs to a select few capitalists at the top of the ladder capable of outsourcing the minor functions of industry to third world sweat shops and call centers. This winner-take-all economic model has left the protagonists of this heist novel in desperate straits, so desperate that armed robbery seems like a sensible alternative to bankruptcy and worse.
The crew are mostly down-on-their-luck, over-the-hill, and formerly middle-class white collar types who have been painted into a financial corner in the new economy that favors young and more pliable engineers or outsourced labor from India or wherever. Gordon is rejected so flatly by some young girl in a take-out place that she calls her boss to have him ejected. Yikes. Even the ringleader’s wife is thrown to the wolves by her law firm after they make the astute business decision to turn their backs on American paralegals and hire cheaper versions from India. It’s a dog-eat-dog world in this novel and early on you pretty much abandon any hope of a fairy tale ending—that’s just not the direction this country is headed.
On the flip side of these reluctant criminals is police detective Resnick, also somewhat of a disaster case as far as his personal life. What he does have is a stick up his ass for Russian gangster Viktor Petrenko, a piece-of-shit anti-Semite who terrorizes local Russian immigrants in shake-downs. In what—at least for me—was an original twist was how the stuff robbed from the bank would incriminate the gangster.
Very Stupid Stuff: Dan and Shrini go to visit Joel unarmed when he has already killed one of the gang? Shrini is so incredibly stupid to meet a gangster face-to-face to blackmail him? Just a little too stupid for the story.
Whatever, I had a lot of fun reading this in record time.
Spoiler
A better story—at least for the movie version—would have been to have them rob the safe deposit boxes, not kill anyone, and then leverage the Russian gangster conviction for their own freedom and the loot. What cop wouldn’t go for that deal? Maybe we can use this idea for something. I wish I could get the job of adapting the screenplay.
Put down your silly-ass mysteries, your who-is-my-husband non-thrillers, and read Dave Zeltserman.
This book is very, very dark but not in the usual dark manner of noir fiction. It’s more of a dark look at the ruins of what was once the American dream which more and more belongs to a select few capitalists at the top of the ladder capable of outsourcing the minor functions of industry to third world sweat shops and call centers. This winner-take-all economic model has left the protagonists of this heist novel in desperate straits, so desperate that armed robbery seems like a sensible alternative to bankruptcy and worse.
The crew are mostly down-on-their-luck, over-the-hill, and formerly middle-class white collar types who have been painted into a financial corner in the new economy that favors young and more pliable engineers or outsourced labor from India or wherever. Gordon is rejected so flatly by some young girl in a take-out place that she calls her boss to have him ejected. Yikes. Even the ringleader’s wife is thrown to the wolves by her law firm after they make the astute business decision to turn their backs on American paralegals and hire cheaper versions from India. It’s a dog-eat-dog world in this novel and early on you pretty much abandon any hope of a fairy tale ending—that’s just not the direction this country is headed.
On the flip side of these reluctant criminals is police detective Resnick, also somewhat of a disaster case as far as his personal life. What he does have is a stick up his ass for Russian gangster Viktor Petrenko, a piece-of-shit anti-Semite who terrorizes local Russian immigrants in shake-downs. In what—at least for me—was an original twist was how the stuff robbed from the bank would incriminate the gangster.
Very Stupid Stuff: Dan and Shrini go to visit Joel unarmed when he has already killed one of the gang? Shrini is so incredibly stupid to meet a gangster face-to-face to blackmail him? Just a little too stupid for the story.
Whatever, I had a lot of fun reading this in record time.
Spoiler
A better story—at least for the movie version—would have been to have them rob the safe deposit boxes, not kill anyone, and then leverage the Russian gangster conviction for their own freedom and the loot. What cop wouldn’t go for that deal? Maybe we can use this idea for something. I wish I could get the job of adapting the screenplay.
September 11, 2012
The cover for Outsourced by Dave Zeltserman (Kindle Books) is deceptive. At first glance It appears to be a comedic novel. Or one filled with black humor in the Jim Thompson mode. You can imagine a movie version with Tom Hanks. And nothing would be further from what this novel is about.
Four out-of-work software engineers decide to rob a bank. One of them, Dan Wilson, had designed the architecture for the bank’s security system and knows exactly when the system will go down. It will go down not because of a design flaw, but because the bank decided to use an offshore company to do the coding for the system. Dan has seen the coding, knows it’s garbage, and knows the flaws. They’ve come up with the perfect plan to rob the bank and get themselves out of a financial black hole, but few plans survive contact.
Two simultaneous stories run next to the software engineers’ scheme. One is that of police detective Alex Resnick, who’s suffering from the death of his child and the divorce of his wife. Two, Viktor Petrinko, a former Russian KGB interrogator and now a mob boss of a Massachusetts town. Petrinko has been running the old “protection” racket on local store owners and Resnick is determined to put him away. The mobster also has plenty of cash and documents stashed in safe deposit boxes at the bank the software engineers are planning to rob. And they’re the prime target for the robbery.
Needless to say, all three stories are going to intersect. With disastrous results.
The actual robbery occurs toward the middle of the book. The rest of the novel deals with the aftermath. It would be too much of a spoiler to detail how the robbery goes terribly wrong. Most of the remainder of the novel centers around the mobster, police detective, and Dan Wilson, who’s traumatized by what happens.
My one criticism with this thriller is the lack of back story for all but a few of the software engineers. Most of the plot centers around Dan Wilson and his family. The other conspirators consist of Shrini Kumar, an Indian expatriate who dreads going back home and having to marry his arranged bride; Gordon, who’s pushing sixty and has issues with women, and Joel, who’s a gun enthusiast. Joel brings a friend of his into the gang, Eric, but we’re never quite sure why. Shrini is the only member who’s under fifty.
With the exception of Eric, all of these men had worked together in the past and made good money. All suffered in the tech crash after 2000. But you’re never quite sure just what they we’re doing, other than working night and day for a company that went under. I’d have like some more back story. Zeltserman has said there was more in the original manuscript, but his publisher wanted it and the social commentary toned down for the market. Someday I’d like to see the original manuscript he submitted.
This is the first kindle book and second novel I’ve read by the author. He’s now on my “Must Read” list. My standard for judging a novel is the “Pull-In” factor. If I can’t put the book down, it qualifies. And Outsourced definitely qualifies.
Four out-of-work software engineers decide to rob a bank. One of them, Dan Wilson, had designed the architecture for the bank’s security system and knows exactly when the system will go down. It will go down not because of a design flaw, but because the bank decided to use an offshore company to do the coding for the system. Dan has seen the coding, knows it’s garbage, and knows the flaws. They’ve come up with the perfect plan to rob the bank and get themselves out of a financial black hole, but few plans survive contact.
Two simultaneous stories run next to the software engineers’ scheme. One is that of police detective Alex Resnick, who’s suffering from the death of his child and the divorce of his wife. Two, Viktor Petrinko, a former Russian KGB interrogator and now a mob boss of a Massachusetts town. Petrinko has been running the old “protection” racket on local store owners and Resnick is determined to put him away. The mobster also has plenty of cash and documents stashed in safe deposit boxes at the bank the software engineers are planning to rob. And they’re the prime target for the robbery.
Needless to say, all three stories are going to intersect. With disastrous results.
The actual robbery occurs toward the middle of the book. The rest of the novel deals with the aftermath. It would be too much of a spoiler to detail how the robbery goes terribly wrong. Most of the remainder of the novel centers around the mobster, police detective, and Dan Wilson, who’s traumatized by what happens.
My one criticism with this thriller is the lack of back story for all but a few of the software engineers. Most of the plot centers around Dan Wilson and his family. The other conspirators consist of Shrini Kumar, an Indian expatriate who dreads going back home and having to marry his arranged bride; Gordon, who’s pushing sixty and has issues with women, and Joel, who’s a gun enthusiast. Joel brings a friend of his into the gang, Eric, but we’re never quite sure why. Shrini is the only member who’s under fifty.
With the exception of Eric, all of these men had worked together in the past and made good money. All suffered in the tech crash after 2000. But you’re never quite sure just what they we’re doing, other than working night and day for a company that went under. I’d have like some more back story. Zeltserman has said there was more in the original manuscript, but his publisher wanted it and the social commentary toned down for the market. Someday I’d like to see the original manuscript he submitted.
This is the first kindle book and second novel I’ve read by the author. He’s now on my “Must Read” list. My standard for judging a novel is the “Pull-In” factor. If I can’t put the book down, it qualifies. And Outsourced definitely qualifies.
January 13, 2011
Good read. It is about a group of software engineers who can't get jobs and decide to rob a bank. Disclaimer: Dave Zeltserman is a friend of mine. We workwd together as engineers and are still friends. This category of book is noir thriller/suspense. It is the third book of dave's that I've read. This is the best of the ones I've read. Dave has whom a lot of awards bur is still a struggling novelist so throw Dave a bone and buy one of his books!!!
July 28, 2011
Not very good. Poorly realised characters, particularly bad dialogue, and while presenting both the cops and the robbers viewpoints was brave, it just didn't work. I don't think I'll be bothering with any others by this author, assuming I can even remember the name in a week's time.
November 17, 2022
Good story. Clever. Bank robbery that went awry. Clever use of a little procedural stuff in the investigation, and the different groups of people. I liked how it wasn’t sentimental and quite realistic in terms of panic and fear and reactions to things.
Characters - even the main protagonist Dan - weren’t particularly likeable but Dan had a certain something that you wanted him to come out ok, not because he was a particularly nice or good person, but because he was well written and you were kind of following him around.
Unusual story in that it went against a lot of TV Police drama tropes and Hollywood endings. Which I liked.
Not suitable for those who don’t appreciate bad language. But I felt the swearing was story appropriate, not there for it’s own sake or for shock factor.
A fast enjoyable gripping read. I’m not sure why I’ve given it a 3 rather than a 4, probably bcos I know I’m unlikely to read it again. It’s not that sort of book.
Characters - even the main protagonist Dan - weren’t particularly likeable but Dan had a certain something that you wanted him to come out ok, not because he was a particularly nice or good person, but because he was well written and you were kind of following him around.
Unusual story in that it went against a lot of TV Police drama tropes and Hollywood endings. Which I liked.
Not suitable for those who don’t appreciate bad language. But I felt the swearing was story appropriate, not there for it’s own sake or for shock factor.
A fast enjoyable gripping read. I’m not sure why I’ve given it a 3 rather than a 4, probably bcos I know I’m unlikely to read it again. It’s not that sort of book.
June 6, 2022
This book held my attention, so 2 stars. Was waiting for some redemption or anything towards the end, but it just all goes to $h!t. The book ends abruptly with everyone either dead or life changing events completely unresolved. I'm simply just left thinking "why did I spend the time reading this book?"
November 6, 2023
Jei ne jausminga pabaiga, būčiau davęs tik 3 žvaigždutes. O šiaip labai geras planas bankui apiplėšti 😊 3,5⭐
June 16, 2022
I loved Dave Zeltserman’s “man out of jail” series, with both ‘’Pariah’’ and ‘’Killer’’ being among the best crime thrillers I’ve read in a long time. All good things must come to an end, however, and with ‘’Outsourced’’ he has branched out slightly.
What do you do when you’re an unemployed software engineer who has tried pretty much everything to find work and been rejected at every turn? When you’re Dan Wilson, you set about exploiting the inherent weaknesses in the bank security system you’ve written the software for and get some friends to help you rob the place. When you’re Dan Wilson, you find a way of setting up a Mafia gangster to take the fall and rob the Russian Mafia. When you’re Dan Wilson, you ask your friends to help you and lie to your wife and kids about it.
Unfortunately, when you’re Dan Wilson, your friends can’t be trusted. One of them can’t control himself during the robbery and a murder results. Another uses this as an excuse to double cross the others and take all of the proceeds for himself. The attempted framing of the Mafia boss also had a few minor details that weren’t quite right, which causes a police detective to doubt who was really behind the robbery.
‘’Outsourced’’ is a major change of direction for Zeltserman’s writing, with the third person narrative providing an entirely new perspective from the first person narrative of his earlier novels. Admittedly, the detail in the plot meant that the story had to be told the way it is, but in doing so the story loses something of what made Zeltserman’s earlier novels so good. It feels more polished, which isn’t a bad thing, but part of the beauty of Zeltserman’s writing is its rough edges. In making things technically better here, the whole experience feels slightly less effective.
The story itself isn’t a bad one, although it does contain many of the elements you would expect to see in a story like this. The double cross and the way things keep going wrong for Dan Wilson are all nothing particularly new. There is a romantic sub-plot and a bit of back story for some of the characters to explain their motivations. None of this is particularly bad, but apart from the methods used to rob the bank, none of it is especially original, either. Zeltserman’s earlier novels were unique in their approach and this just feels a little like a thriller by numbers.
Another let down for me was some of the descriptive work in the novel. Previously, Zeltserman has used the first person narrative as a tool to paint in broad brush strokes. Here, he has to lay things out a little more convincingly. Whilst certain scenes suggest he does have an eye for description he hasn’t shown in his earlier works, it did seem to spoil the flow of the story a little. One scene in a bar was a great piece of descriptive writing in terms of the characters appearance and feelings, but the scene itself didn’t seem to do much to advance the plot and this happens a couple of times throughout the novel in a way that Zeltserman’s writing has previously avoided.
‘’Outsourced’’ is a very decent read, with a different perspective on the bank robbery. It may be that if I wasn’t already a huge fan of Zeltserman’s work, I would have enjoyed it more. The change of style works for this novel, but puts Zeltserman into a huge bracket with many other crime thriller writers, whereas before he stood separate and high above virtually all of them. I enjoyed the read, but unlike Zeltserman’s earlier work, I can’t see it being a novel I’ll read over and over again.
This review may also appear, in whole or in part, under my name at any or all of www.ciao.co.uk, www.thebookbag.co.uk, www.goodreads.com, www.amazon.co.uk and www.dooyoo.co.uk
What do you do when you’re an unemployed software engineer who has tried pretty much everything to find work and been rejected at every turn? When you’re Dan Wilson, you set about exploiting the inherent weaknesses in the bank security system you’ve written the software for and get some friends to help you rob the place. When you’re Dan Wilson, you find a way of setting up a Mafia gangster to take the fall and rob the Russian Mafia. When you’re Dan Wilson, you ask your friends to help you and lie to your wife and kids about it.
Unfortunately, when you’re Dan Wilson, your friends can’t be trusted. One of them can’t control himself during the robbery and a murder results. Another uses this as an excuse to double cross the others and take all of the proceeds for himself. The attempted framing of the Mafia boss also had a few minor details that weren’t quite right, which causes a police detective to doubt who was really behind the robbery.
‘’Outsourced’’ is a major change of direction for Zeltserman’s writing, with the third person narrative providing an entirely new perspective from the first person narrative of his earlier novels. Admittedly, the detail in the plot meant that the story had to be told the way it is, but in doing so the story loses something of what made Zeltserman’s earlier novels so good. It feels more polished, which isn’t a bad thing, but part of the beauty of Zeltserman’s writing is its rough edges. In making things technically better here, the whole experience feels slightly less effective.
The story itself isn’t a bad one, although it does contain many of the elements you would expect to see in a story like this. The double cross and the way things keep going wrong for Dan Wilson are all nothing particularly new. There is a romantic sub-plot and a bit of back story for some of the characters to explain their motivations. None of this is particularly bad, but apart from the methods used to rob the bank, none of it is especially original, either. Zeltserman’s earlier novels were unique in their approach and this just feels a little like a thriller by numbers.
Another let down for me was some of the descriptive work in the novel. Previously, Zeltserman has used the first person narrative as a tool to paint in broad brush strokes. Here, he has to lay things out a little more convincingly. Whilst certain scenes suggest he does have an eye for description he hasn’t shown in his earlier works, it did seem to spoil the flow of the story a little. One scene in a bar was a great piece of descriptive writing in terms of the characters appearance and feelings, but the scene itself didn’t seem to do much to advance the plot and this happens a couple of times throughout the novel in a way that Zeltserman’s writing has previously avoided.
‘’Outsourced’’ is a very decent read, with a different perspective on the bank robbery. It may be that if I wasn’t already a huge fan of Zeltserman’s work, I would have enjoyed it more. The change of style works for this novel, but puts Zeltserman into a huge bracket with many other crime thriller writers, whereas before he stood separate and high above virtually all of them. I enjoyed the read, but unlike Zeltserman’s earlier work, I can’t see it being a novel I’ll read over and over again.
This review may also appear, in whole or in part, under my name at any or all of www.ciao.co.uk, www.thebookbag.co.uk, www.goodreads.com, www.amazon.co.uk and www.dooyoo.co.uk
November 19, 2010
Unlike most reviewers, I wasn't a huge fan of Zeltserman's debut (Small Crimes) -- or rather, I found it kind of so-so, trying a little too hard to hit all the noir touchpoints. I got sent his next books (Pariah and Killer) but since I hadn't really enjoyed his first, couldn't be bothered to pick either up. But I've for a weakness for heist stories, so when I was sent this fourth book, I was intrigued enough to give it thirty pages to suck me in. As in Small Crimes, we meet a middle-aged family man who's in a bad spot and feels like he has to take desperate measures to survive. In this case, the guy is an unemployed computer programmer whose career has foundered on the shoals of IT overseas outsourcing and thinly veiled age discrimination. But the real problem is that he has no health insurance and a rapidly deteriorating eye condition that will leave him blind inside a year if left untreated.
Facing a mounting pile of bills and blindness, he gets together with former colleagues and cooks up a perfect plan to rob a bank. Alas, as all good crooks know, the plan is only as good as the people executing it. And unfortunately, his team of unemployed IT dudes is pretty shaky: there's a compound-dwelling libertarian gun nut, a socially maladjusted fat dude who creeps women out, and then an even more shady friend of a friend is added at the last moment. Naturally, things don't go quite as planned, and naturally, some people get killed in what was supposed to be a totally victimless crime. Things only proceed to get even more pear-shaped, as a Russian gangster, the Italian mob, the local cops, and the FBI all attempt to figure out who pulled off the heist.
Just as in Small Crimes, the book's biggest strength is the author's ability to get into the protagonist's head and show his guilt over lying to his wife and the fear that his formerly middle-class family will implode. The desperation that drives the action is palpable and it's hard not to imagine oneself in the protagonist's shoes. However, other elements, such as the Russian mobsters and the ruthless libertarian, are too over the top and tonally different from the protagonist's plight to work. The climax is a microcosm of what's wrong with the book: a rapidly mounting body count and action-movie antics juxtaposed with an emotionally resonant and realistically bleak final scene.
Facing a mounting pile of bills and blindness, he gets together with former colleagues and cooks up a perfect plan to rob a bank. Alas, as all good crooks know, the plan is only as good as the people executing it. And unfortunately, his team of unemployed IT dudes is pretty shaky: there's a compound-dwelling libertarian gun nut, a socially maladjusted fat dude who creeps women out, and then an even more shady friend of a friend is added at the last moment. Naturally, things don't go quite as planned, and naturally, some people get killed in what was supposed to be a totally victimless crime. Things only proceed to get even more pear-shaped, as a Russian gangster, the Italian mob, the local cops, and the FBI all attempt to figure out who pulled off the heist.
Just as in Small Crimes, the book's biggest strength is the author's ability to get into the protagonist's head and show his guilt over lying to his wife and the fear that his formerly middle-class family will implode. The desperation that drives the action is palpable and it's hard not to imagine oneself in the protagonist's shoes. However, other elements, such as the Russian mobsters and the ruthless libertarian, are too over the top and tonally different from the protagonist's plight to work. The climax is a microcosm of what's wrong with the book: a rapidly mounting body count and action-movie antics juxtaposed with an emotionally resonant and realistically bleak final scene.
November 8, 2011
The modern day scourge of the middle-aged man is being laid-off and replaced by younger hires, willing to work for less money. To top of the humiliation when the company sends those same jobs overseas and outsources them to workers in Asia or Central America then the felling on worthlessness is complete. In fact it makes you want to do something to stick it to the man!
Dan was luckier than most. At least he had managed to scrape together a three-month contract building a security system for a local bank but was summarily dismissed when an Indian firm was given the chance to implement his system. When a mistake closed the security window from twenty-eight seconds to twenty-eight minutes each day Dan didn’t point it out to the bank‘s president. Stick it to the man. In fact when he was unable to find another job in the tech industry he decided to take advantage of that twenty eight minute daily window and with another laid-off tech buddy, Shrini, devised an unstoppable plan to rob the bank.
Enrolling two other laid-off over-the hill geeks, one with a penchant for guns, the other for women they went about their plan. Nothing could go wrong. When the group emerged from the bank, no longer ‘thicker-than –thieves’ the plan starts to unravel. Not only are the police now involved because they shot a bank customer, but the safety deposit boxes they hit where the property of local Russian mafia big shot Petrenko.
With the merry band disappearing one by one, a harpy of a wife chapping his ass, the Russians and the police closing in and his failing eyesight threatening to make him completely blind, Dan has to make his move, one that will surprise you.
Although the story took its time unwinding the twists it takes at every opportunity leads for a fine well-plotted story and an unforgettable finale.
Dan was luckier than most. At least he had managed to scrape together a three-month contract building a security system for a local bank but was summarily dismissed when an Indian firm was given the chance to implement his system. When a mistake closed the security window from twenty-eight seconds to twenty-eight minutes each day Dan didn’t point it out to the bank‘s president. Stick it to the man. In fact when he was unable to find another job in the tech industry he decided to take advantage of that twenty eight minute daily window and with another laid-off tech buddy, Shrini, devised an unstoppable plan to rob the bank.
Enrolling two other laid-off over-the hill geeks, one with a penchant for guns, the other for women they went about their plan. Nothing could go wrong. When the group emerged from the bank, no longer ‘thicker-than –thieves’ the plan starts to unravel. Not only are the police now involved because they shot a bank customer, but the safety deposit boxes they hit where the property of local Russian mafia big shot Petrenko.
With the merry band disappearing one by one, a harpy of a wife chapping his ass, the Russians and the police closing in and his failing eyesight threatening to make him completely blind, Dan has to make his move, one that will surprise you.
Although the story took its time unwinding the twists it takes at every opportunity leads for a fine well-plotted story and an unforgettable finale.
March 29, 2011
28 Minuten bleiben den vier arbeitslosen Softwareentwicklern, eine Bank auszurauben. Ein perfekter Plan und die letzte Chance für den langsam erblindenden Programmierer Dan, für sich und seine Familie vorzusorgen. Doch auch ein perfekter Plan birgt Tücken und kann entsetzlich schief laufen.
Dave Zeltserman war selbst Softwareentwickler, und schon sind wir beim Manko dieses Krimis: 28 Minuten liest sich leicht und flüssig, wer aber Wert auf einen literarischen Schreibstil legt, wird enttäuscht. Manche Sätze sind schlicht aneinandergereiht, ohne jegliches Gefühl für eine gute Erzählung. “Er war bloß 28 Jahre alt”, angesichts dieser Wortwahl schmerzt das literarische Auge, zum Glück sind solche Ausrutscher jedoch selten, bleiben dennoch im Gedächtnis hängen.
Dabei erzählt Zeltserman einen soliden, spannenden Krimi, gute Hausmannskost möchte man sagen, die auch mit überraschenden Wendungen aufwarten kann. Wer kurzweilig unterhalten werden will und auf einen gekonnten Schreibstil verzichten kann, dem sei 28 Minuten empfohlen.
Dave Zeltserman war selbst Softwareentwickler, und schon sind wir beim Manko dieses Krimis: 28 Minuten liest sich leicht und flüssig, wer aber Wert auf einen literarischen Schreibstil legt, wird enttäuscht. Manche Sätze sind schlicht aneinandergereiht, ohne jegliches Gefühl für eine gute Erzählung. “Er war bloß 28 Jahre alt”, angesichts dieser Wortwahl schmerzt das literarische Auge, zum Glück sind solche Ausrutscher jedoch selten, bleiben dennoch im Gedächtnis hängen.
Dabei erzählt Zeltserman einen soliden, spannenden Krimi, gute Hausmannskost möchte man sagen, die auch mit überraschenden Wendungen aufwarten kann. Wer kurzweilig unterhalten werden will und auf einen gekonnten Schreibstil verzichten kann, dem sei 28 Minuten empfohlen.
October 6, 2013
I thought that since the author was an engineer in a previous life that this would be more about losing your job in middle age and the ins and outs of the SW engineering world. Nope. Just a bank heist novel. I quickly lost all sympathy for the characters. Even if things had gone off without a hitch they would have done harm to other people who had nothing to do with the protagonists predicament. Surely the SW engineers in India would have been called onto the carpet and weren't they just trying to do their job? The bank manager who decided to outsource is held up as a bit of a villain, but without any background on why he did what he did. The whole anger against the global economy thing is wearing thin.
So why 3 stars? As a quick read, stupid people getting themselves into hopeless situations, kind of book it was good enough to entertain me.
So why 3 stars? As a quick read, stupid people getting themselves into hopeless situations, kind of book it was good enough to entertain me.
May 15, 2011
Outsourcing is both how Dan lost his job and the source of a loophole he plans to exploit in the security system at the bank where he was recently contracted to architect (not program) a new security system. After months of job hunting, Dan is backed into a corner without income and without benefits. Engaging old friends and colleagues from the software industry to rob untraceable cash from the deposit boxes of a local gangster, Dan plots an impenetrable heist with the exception of the human factor that threatens to throw the characters into a chaotic scramble for self-preservation. Full of revenge seeking and double motives, this novel should please those that enjoy the drama of a carefully planned and poorly executed bank robbery.
August 30, 2012
In a perfect world, I would've given this novel 3.5 stars, but this ranking isn't available on Goodreads. It's a heist novel, more than it's about the calamities of downsizing and outsourcing, but it's a good heist novel with a plot that doesn't follow the clichés of the genre. Zelsterman spent much time following the aftermath of the heist, rather than build up to it, which I really appreciated. Consequences of crime is a big element of noir. My main issue with OUTSOURCED were the characters, who were rough fits for such a story. Especially Dan, who almost messed with my suspension of disbelief. Joel was a great creation though. I'm not too crazy about bank heists novels, but this is very well done for its genre.
July 16, 2016
Premise seemed wonderful, unemployed software engineers exploiting flawed alarm software to stage a bank robbery. Enhance your plan by only robbing safety deposit boxes belonging to local Russian crimelord while disguised as a mafia kingpin and you have a scenario where hopefully the bad guys will be too busy killing each other for anyone to investigate the robbery properly. As with Zeltsermann's other books though, this represents the thin edge of the wedge and things start to unravel pretty quickly once one of the bank customers gets killed leading to the conclusion that there is no such thing as the perfect crime - there are always consequences.
January 17, 2011
Dan Wilson is out of work and on the verge of losing his eyesight. With a mortgage to pay and a family to support, he is an ordinary guy desperate for money. He conceives a can't-miss bank heist, enlists the help of some friends, and then--surprise!--things don't go exactly as planned. Dave Zeltserman cleverly and effectively engineers the plot with a steady supply of action and surprises. In sum, Outsourced is thoroughly entertaining noir in a traditional vein.
February 5, 2012
If you're interested in a fast paced afternoon read that will keep you on your toes and get you thinking, this is it. Dan Wilson is a middle-aged, middle-class software engineer who has been laid off after 25 years at the same company -- along with a few of his friends. After two years of no jobs, they decide to rob a bank. This is NOT a caper book. It's literature disguised as thriller. Well written, VERY well thought out, and extremely thought provoking. I highly recommend.
February 15, 2012
A wicked little book in which an outsourced, out-of-work, software engineer cooks up a plan to use his software skills to rob a bank. The plan seems to be foolproof - until the human factor crops up in the middle of the heist. People who you thought you knew do unexpected things under pressure - like shoot a bank clerk. Then you, as you become more desperate, find you can lie and lie and lie to try to avoid being caught.
Worthwhile reading about the pressures of contemporary society.
Worthwhile reading about the pressures of contemporary society.
February 27, 2011
Several software engineers in their late middle years have their jobs outsourced and can't find new ones. They plan a bank heist and it all goes downhill from there. You'll think that you've read this one before and then Zeltserman introduces twists and you're off the beaten path. This is a good read for those who like dark crime novels.
March 18, 2011
Another fine outing by Zeltserman. First 50 pages ease into the plot, but don't worry, no words are wasted and the feelings and motivations laid out early on pay off later as the plots start to converge and the ingenious robbery scheme starts to off the rails. If you read any Zeltserman before you know no one is getting off easy and everyone is getting what they deserve.
February 28, 2015
The low rating for this book surprised me. To be honest, early on in the book I thought the dialogue was a bit cheesy (it could have been intended that way), and maybe some points a bit simplified. However, when the shit hits the fan the book really comes into it's own. It got really fun really fast. If you are a fan of early Coen brothers stuff this would be a great fit for you.
March 4, 2011
I liked this quite a bit -- especially how desperation drives a domesticated white collar software developer to crime (a heist). Thus far on Dave Zeltserman, I liked SMALL CRIMES more, but this book is pretty strong, too.
April 18, 2011
All the suspense of a b-grade 90 minute action film, packed into several hundred pages of average writing. The sobbing scene at the end? Eye rolling material.
I expected much better given all the positive reviews.
I expected much better given all the positive reviews.
September 14, 2011
Fast paced bank heist with a GREAT cast of (underperformer) characters getting what's theirs! Love the writing style and short chapters to move along the action. Nice cutting between plot points until it all wraps up!
Want to read
September 14, 2010FT book review summer/fall 2010. seems interesting.
March 2, 2011
Read my review here
http://lit.newcity.com/2011/02/17/fic...
http://lit.newcity.com/2011/02/17/fic...
May 9, 2011
Got very involved in the story and then it just ends. If you like books with clear endings, do not read this one.
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