Thick as Thieves

By: Peter Spiegelman

Narrated by: William Dufris

Ex-CIA Carr is the reluctant leader of an elite crew planning a robbery of such extraordinary proportions that it will leave them set for life. Diamonds, money laundering, and extortion go into a timed-to-the-minute scheme that unfurls across South America, Miami, and Grand Cayman Island. Carr's cohorts are seasoned pros, but they're wound drum-tight - months before, the man who brought them together was killed in what Carr suspects was a setup. And there are other loose ends: some of the intel they're paying for is badly inaccurate, and one of the gang may have an agenda of her own. But Carr's biggest problems are yet to come, because few on his crew are what they seem to be, and even his own past is a lie.

©2011 Peter Spiegelman (P)2011 Dreamscape Media, LLC

Critic reviews

"Superlative prose...[a] gritty stand-alone...both intricate and plausible." ( Publishers Weekly)

Intricate Storyline

This was a bit hard to follow in the beginning but very suspenseful by the end. The payoff is pretty big in the end so overall I liked the book and the listen. If you had asked me halfway in though, I would have said it was too confusing and hard to follow. The pieces do come together.

Le Carre Whisperer

Except for the tiniest thread of dues ex machina in his ending, Spiegelman has woven together caper with spy craft engagingly in Thick As Thieves. His last hours of listening stole a Saturday afternoon... No added an excitement to that afternoon, as I sat earphoned and useless to the world.... Normally I listen to these books while doing some second order tasks. Only two or three times have I entirely given over a block of time to just listening. No regrets, the author's that good... I'll listen to another of his.... Look forward to it.

Great book, Perfect Narration

Darker than the Ocean's movies, this heist book is not a playful, high stakes romp. There is a feeling that things can go horribly wrong at any time. The thieves are either at each other's throats or manipulating their partners, and the bad guys (this crew robs criminal organizations) are ruthless. They'll kill the instant something smells fishy. Everything you want in your caper is still there: 2 femme fatales, hair-trigger psycho tough-guys, smarmy villains, but there is the hero, too. He is so well developed and real, fighting family issues while struggling to keep his crew on mission. Deep down, the story is about Carr trying to make sense of his past at the same time as he catches whiffs of an impending trap.

The narrator, William Dufris, knocked my socks off. I'm putting him up there with Scott Brick and Simon Vance, but he's got far more range. Each character was distinct, I could pick them out before the writing tag. Spiegleman indicates almost everyone's accent and Dufris nails it. And he finds this incredible, resonating baritone (or whatever is below that) for the behind-the-scenes money-man.

Disappointed

In the middle of the first chapter, this felt like a mistake. After a few more, the mistake I made in buying this was clear. The story was confusing in what seemed to be an attempt to create depth in the characters. There were sequences that seemed to end unfinished. The narration was horrible as well. I gave up on this one after about 6 or 7 chapters.

Narration was like torture

The narration of this novel was so awful that I actually found myself making fun of the narrator and imitating him. His cadence and intonation were so off-putting that I could not finish this novel and really could not get past 20 minutes. It was almost like valley-girl speak - just dreadful.