THROWBACK THURSDAY: SMOKED and THE DROP-OFF by PATRICK QUINLAN

Way back in 2006 I read and warmly reviewed Patrick Quinlan’s entertaining debut crime novel Smoked. Although I enjoyed it, and Quinlan’s subsequent book The Takedown, I never got around to reading Smoked‘s sequel, The Drop-Off until recently.

Before reading The Drop-Off, I thought I would go back and have another look at Smoked, and what I thought of it at the time.

In the Canberra Times (29 April, 2006) I said:

“Now Patrick Quinlan joins their ranks (Elmore Leonard et. al.) with an engaging debut novel, Smoked, about bomb-makers, killers, pornographers, and assorted Mafia types.

James “Smoke” Duggan used to be a leading bomb-maker until a New York mob boss tricked him into playing an unwitting role in an heinous tragedy. Duggan took his revenge on the mob boss, as well as making off with a large sum of money, and is now hiding in Portland with his much younger girlfriend, Lola Bell. When the mob members track him down they send world-weary hit man Denny Cruz after him, but nothing goes as planned and soon Duggan is playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse with some of the nastiest killers to grace crime fiction.

Despite the bland cover, Smoked, is a highly entertaining and graphically violent novel that zips along at a hectic pace with plenty of action and several amusing moments. Although none of the characters are model citizens, or pillars of virtue, most readers will find themselves rooting for Duggan and Lola, and even ocassionally for a pair of abusive pornographers who find themselves unwittingly caught up in the hunt for the former bomb-maker. The only criticisms are that some of the action is over-the-top and that the plotting lacks the complexity of the better American crime fiction around now. Nevertheless, this is a great read with a memorable cast of characters.”

On re-reading, Smoked has that very early 2000s feel to it, when tales about crooks who were heroes was all the go. The story moves quickly and has a nice sense of unpredictability about it. It certainly holds up well.

The Drop-Off, (Headline, 2008), opens up soon after the end of Smoked. A failed attempt in Florida by the mob to grab Smoke Duggan and the money, leads to the former bombmaker and his motley crew setting sail for the Caribbean with the $2.5 million secreted on their boat. They only make it as far as the down market island of Saint Mark’s before needing to stop for repairs. Once there, word of their location leaks out, and an assorted group of local and American gangster types start plotting and planning about how to get hold of Duggan and the money.

The Drop-Off is a wild ride of a story. The basic premise of the tale is seemingly straight-forward, but Quinlan imbues it with several twists and turns, as the various plotters turn on each other, and the betrayals, and the dead bodies, begin to pile up. It all moves along at a decent pace, and the plot smoothly builds to the inevitable blood bath ending.

The characters are an entertaining bunch, although Quinlan probably over does the background stories for each of them, even the minor ones. A couple stand out, especially the local fourteen-year-old entrepreneur known as Mr Macho, and a former mobster who just wants to run his golf course in Florida, but is forced back into the old business. Surprisingly, only the titular central character, James ‘Smoke’ Duggan, fails to come alive and is as wispy as his nickname.

Otherwise, The Drop-Off has all the good qualities of Smoked, sparkling dialogue, quirky characters, dashes of humour and a plot that never quite goes where you are expecting it to.

Enjoyable fun in a light Elmore Leonard way.

In addition to the two Smoke Duggan books, Quinlan wrote two stand-alone crime novels, The Hit and The Takedown, which seem to be in a similar vein with crooks as the main characters. After those four books, Quinlan largely disappeared from the crime writing scene, although he seems to have continued with his sci-fi thrillers. His books are still relatively easy to find, including on Kindle, and are well worth tracking down.