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    Ghostman: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Ghostman: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Ghostman: A Novel
    Audiobook11 hours

    Ghostman: A Novel

    Written by Roger Hobbs

    Narrated by Jake Weber

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Stunningly dark, hugely intelligent and thoroughly addictive, Ghostman announces the arrival of an exciting and highly distinctive novelist.

    When a casino robbery in Atlantic City goes horribly awry, the man who orchestrated it is obliged to call in a favor from someone who's occasionally called Jack. While it's doubtful that anyone knows his actual name or anything at all about his true identity, or even if he's still alive, he's in his mid-thirties and lives completely off the grid, a criminal's criminal who does entirely as he pleases and is almost impossible to get in touch with. But within hours a private jet is flying this exceptionally experienced fixer and cleaner-upper from Seattle to New Jersey and right into a spectacular mess: one heister dead in the parking lot, another winged but on the run, the shooter a complete mystery, the $1.2 million in freshly printed bills god knows where and the FBI already waiting for Jack at the airport, to be joined shortly by other extremely interested and elusive parties. He has only forty-eight hours until the twice-stolen cash literally explodes, taking with it the wider, byzantine ambitions behind the theft. To contend with all this will require every gram of his skill, ingenuity and self-protective instincts, especially when offense and defense soon become meaningless terms. And as he maneuvers these exceedingly slippery slopes, he relives the botched bank robbery in Kuala Lumpur five years earlier that has now landed him this unwanted new assignment.

    From its riveting opening pages, Ghostman effortlessly pulls the reader into Jack's refined and peculiar world-and the sophisticated shadowboxing grows ever more intense as he moves, hour by hour, toward a  constantly reimprovised solution. With a quicksilver plot, gripping prose and masterly expertise, Roger Hobbs has given us a novel that will immediately place him in the company of our most esteemed crime writers.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateFeb 12, 2013
    ISBN9780385361750
    Unavailable
    Ghostman: A Novel
    Author

    Roger Hobbs

    Roger Hobbs vive en Portland (Oregón). En 2011 se licenció en el Reed College en inglés, lenguas antiguas, cine negro y teoría literaria. Ghostman, su primera novela, ha sido un éxito de ventas; además, se está traduciendo a catorce idiomas y pronto tendrá una adaptación al cine.

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    Reviews for Ghostman

    4/5

    214 ratings33 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      [Cross-posted to Knite Writes]This was a pretty enjoyable read all around. It’s action-packed, exciting, contains a lot of interesting information about the criminal underworld, and sports a colorful cast of characters who are each pretty well-characterized despite having limited screen time. This is one of those fast-paced books that, while still being fairly long, manages to keep your eyes glued to the page, anticipating the twists and turns coming around the bend. There was always something going on, always a tide turning, always an unexpected shift in the story’s direction.In terms of the pacing and plot of this book, I can’t really complain. It’s exactly what it says on the tin: a fast-paced action thriller.That being said, I can tell you that if you’re looking for any sort of deep thematic elements or lessons or complex, multi-layered story lines, you’re not going to get that in this book. Despite its array of twists, most of them are fairly standard and predictable for the genre, and none of them particularly shake up the overall idea of the novel. This book is a bit of fun and excitement for the adrenaline-loving crowd — shootouts, fist-fights, and a few clever tricks from a wily protagonist are the fare.Not to say that’s a bad thing — I did enjoy this novel — but it lacks a level of thematic depth I’ve come to enjoy from other major authors in the crime thriller genre.Overall, this was a fun ride, and really, it never purported itself to be anything but, so there’s not a whole lot to complain about.It shaped up into a pretty good read in the end.
    • 4/5
      When a casino robbery in Atlantic City goes horribly awry, the man who orchestrated it is obliged to call in a favor from someone who's occasionally called Jack. While it's doubtful that anyone knows anything about his true identity, he's in his mid-thirties and lives completely off the grid, a criminal's criminal who does entirely as he pleases and is almost impossible to get in touch with. But within hours a private jet is flying this exceptionally experienced fixer and cleaner-upper from Seattle to New Jersey and right into a spectacular mess; one keister dead in the parking lot, another winged but on the run, the shooter a complete mystery, the $1.2 million in freshly printed bills god knows where, and the FBI already waiting for Jack at the airport, to be joined shortly by other extremely interested and elusive parties.
    • 3/5
      If you like reading about bad guys, this is the book for you! It’s hard not to like the bad guys, but don’t get too attached to them - their life span isn’t known for longevity. Yet, Jack, the Ghostman, seems to have a charmed life. Even a federal agent appears to be attracted to him and to his skills and intelligence. Yes, he is skilled and intelligent, but he is playing on the wrong team! Still, he doesn’t mind disclosing many of his secrets in theiving and surviving, and the reader may learn a thing or two about being dishonest in a big way. Though well written and with decidedly fascinating characters, there is at times way too many details about guns, explosives, Kevlar vests, banking procedures, exploding ink packs, drugs, cars, torture, and so forth. But as far as suspenseful page-turners go, it is a winner.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this one for the most part though it really was somewhat different than expected. The MC in this book is somewhat less engaging than other MC's of recently read books or movies I have seen. He certainly kicks ass though which kept me interested throughout the book.

      3.5 Stars for a decent main character.
    • 3/5
      Rarely do I like a book in which there is not one character I like, but this is the exception. I was kept wondering what was going to happen next and "who done it ?" For me the book bogged down with what I considered extraneous details, but not enough to detract from the story line substantially. I'm not sure I would pick up another book by the author. I really would give it 2.5 stars but will settle for 3.
    • 4/5
      really good book, action keeps you glued to the pages
    • 5/5
      For a first novel, Ghost Man is a taught thriller full of twists and turns to keep you reading.
    • 4/5
      I think this was a fine effort for a first timer. The concept was good. A highly skilled bank robber uses his skills to catch same. The characters needed more depth and sometimes the narrative just kept on going and going and going for no good reason. But, it was good enough that I will look forward to his next one.
    • 4/5
      Really more like 3.5 stars. It is good and a solid page-turner, but it suffers a little from the "Superman" problem. Our anti-hero protagonist is smarter, stronger, more resilient, and of course, is moving 3 moves ahead of everyone else. Even with all that I still kind of liked it. Worth the read, as long as you know what you getting.
    • 4/5
      "Ghostman" by Roger Hobbs is good. Really, really good.

      Through it's pages we follow a singular member of a heist gang - the Ghostman - a man who has no identity anymore, and lives to disappear. We are given two story threads - one past, and one present - and, even though he's an anti-hero, one cannot help but be hopelessly enamored with his illegal exploits and cunning.

      Not since Michael Connelly's 'Void Moon' or Eric Garcia's 'Matchstick Men' have I witnessed the anti-hero story done so brilliantly. This is a much-hyped book and - for once - I entirely concur and then some.
    • 4/5
      Readers may learn a little more about robbery than they should in this fast-paced crime thriller. Roger Hobbs' ghostman is an expert at disappearing after a crime. So, when a major Atlantic City casino heist goes bad and the only survivor vanishes - with the money - Ghostman (let's call him Jack) is called upon to repay a debt by finding the missing man and money. The clock is ticking, not only because others are looking but because the stacks of bills are federal payload and ink packs hidden within will explode in 30-some hours. As he works out what went wrong at the casino and how he would have reacted, Jack reveals the crafts of his trade as well as the details of the botched job 5 years ago that left him owing a favor to a very dangerous man. We shouldn't like Jack - he is a violent criminal after all - but his skills are so admirable, the reader can't help but hope he succeeds, even while realizing that the life Jack leads is exciting, yes, but lonely.
    • 4/5
      This is a great book. One sometimes wonders how many different protagonists the crime genre can produce. Here is a fresh set of characters in a fast moving narrative that gives us, through flashbacks, not one but two very good story lines. Don't know if all the "facts" about the modern way to do a heist are true but they sure are convincing.An excellent novel from Roger Hobbs. It stands up well against long time authors. Hope there is more to come from the artful, gifted Mr. Hobbs.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book!!! I read it straight through, sans much sleep, in 24 hours. Just couldn't put it down to go to bed....
    • 4/5
      A mystery novel written from the perspective of a criminal who is paying back a debt to a criminal mastermind, which is fixing up the mess from a casino heist gone wrong. Fun read!
    • 5/5
      The book starts off at full throttle, with an armored car robbery in Atlantic City! Then we meet the Ghostman - "a criminal's criminal who does entirely as he pleases and is almost impossible to get in touch with." He is a cleaner/fixer upper and he has to fix the robbery gone wrong. Along the way, we get to learn about him, his methods, and his background (through a flashback story in Kuala Lumpur. The whole book was fun to read, with a fast pace, and lots of action! I hope the author is able to bring the Ghostman back, but I'm sure glad he brought him out this time!
    • 4/5
      I do not typically read this genre - but picked it up because I needed something and it had good reviews. Listened to the audio version - well done. Fast paced, interesting - a bit too graphic for my taste, but that is the genre.
    • 3/5
      A "big heist" thriller where in "Jack" a man of any disguises has to clean up a botched casino robbery for an ex-boss who he owes. If you've read any of Laurence Block's Hitman series, you get the point.Pretty good read, especially for a first novel. The time-frame moves back and forth between past and present breaking the buildup of tension. Lots of blood and mayhem and interesting tricks of planning and escape strategies. Looks like a the beginning of a series. Great for the beach. Funniest line: "I don't want to die in a burning car, especially if it's Japanese."
    • 3/5
      narrative, read like a dective noire pulp novel, in a hoarse voice, does female caharacters pretty well. Slow moving for a thriller. Somewhat interesting details included. back and forth in narrative between current job and previous job that got screwed up.
    • 4/5
      It was intriguing, but somehow left me feeling a little wanting. The story opens with a bank robbery that goes wrong and the man who organised it calling in a marker from a former compatriot who messed up a robbery before. This is our hero, Jack Delton, is the name he uses for the story, who is a ghost man, someone who can be anyone and often is, a man who can change his appearance and voice at will and who is determined to stay under the radar, no matter what it takes.Now he's investigating this robbery, trying to see who goofed, trying to ensure that the security on the money doesn't explode, and trying to stay alive himself.It could be good and the author shows promise but I didn't engage with the characters, and didn't really care who lived and who died and what had happened to the characters after the story was over. Interesting but not really engaging.
    • 3/5
      Fast paced. Good plot twists.
    • 5/5
      Fascinating book read expertly! The voices are right on the money.
    • 3/5
      Overall not bad, but you have to approach this in the right way. It displays symptoms of first novel syndrome in a couple of ways; fanboy and research. Right off the bat you can tell the guy did a lot of it and he really wants you to know how inside baseball he is. Towards the end he practically quotes Neal from Heat when one of the bank robbers says that they’re there to steal the bank’s money, not theirs, theirs is insured. Oceans 11 (12 and 13), The Score, The Heist, they’re all in there and to some degree it works. If you don’t take it seriously and if you can overlook the fact that he “named” his main character Jack. Yeah. Another Jack. Can’t anyone come up with a different name? Oy vey, at least he didn’t have gray eyes.The tons of research manifests itself in lots and lots of info dump. He doesn’t even get out of the gate without showing off and it made me wonder if he could tell a story at all. Page 4 with the info dump already? But, it was interesting and amusing so I went with it and yeah, there’s a story down in there. There are ordinance mistakes though which made me wonder at the quality of the rest of his research. Please writers, for the love of Neil Degrasse Tyson, figure out laws of physics and that no bullet anywhere anytime is going to spin someone around or blow them out of their Keds. I know it make for good theater, but cut it out. And while you’re at it, stop equating a magazine with a clip. They’re different things and barely any guns use clips, they all pretty much use magazines. They are not equivocal. Also, locked and loaded has absolutely no place in modern firearms. It’s meaningless with today’s guns.The plot moved along fairly well with plenty of twists and turns, not too many characters or coincidences. There are bad guys and badder guys and even the lone cop isn’t above looking the other way when it suits. The writing was workmanlike, but a bit too loose and the word choices were suspect here and there. Like a bottle of shaving cream, synthetic plastic and totalizing. WTF? Anyway, mostly the story moved right along. Stories actually because of course “Jack” has to have a traumatic event in his past that is directly tied to his current predicament, which despite the way it looks, he says he’s involved in just for fun. Yeah right. At least he’s not as perfect as other anti-heroes I’ve come across, but I won’t be reading more, it’s just too silly and I’ve seen all the movies already.
    • 4/5
      Ghosting is different from vanishing. Vanishing among professional criminals is discouraged if not condemned. After the job, you are obliged to follow the plan; if you disappear, especially with the money, all bets are off, and everyone will be after you.

      Ghosting is very different as it involves assuming different identities and becoming different people. In this book, our protagonist -- the name is hardly relevant since he assumes so many different ones, but we'll call him Jack -- is obliged to fly to Atlantic City to clean up after a Federal Payload job that has gone all wrong. The details of what makes transport of billions of dollars from the Federal Reserve to banks (and especially casinos) around the country is really interesting) and our hero has but 48 hours to clean things up or everything goes to hell for Marcus, the mastermind of the operation who is trying to steal not just from the Treasury department, but the drug cartel. How it was to work is rather ingenious. But things go wrong and one man is killed and another has vanished. Jack is charged with cleaning it up and fixing it.

      Some critics have criticized Hobbs for lack of character development. I wonder if this wasn't partly deliberate as the anti-hero is supposed to be colorless, formless and ghostlike. It doesn’t matter that we don’t like him; it's a good story, in this case very well read by Jake Weber ( a narrator I had not heard before but will add to my list of narrators to watch, err, listen for.)

      BTW, the protagonist read the Aeneid in Latin as a boy (some kids played with model trains, he read Latin) and he always wanted to be Aeneas. His motto became: 'Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo.'

      My motto has always been Cave ab homine unius libri.
    • 5/5
      This thriller debut has all the right parts: good ingenious plot, good writing, likable and interesting main character - which I assume we will see again. It has one shortcoming that ruins for me a lot - the main character is practically a superman that can do anything and find his way out of any situations. Still good, easy read.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I loved this intelligent, fast-paced, crime thriller and hope Roger Hobbs doesn't disappear Ghostman forever. An amazing debut. I'm looking forward to more adventures with Ghostman.
    • 4/5
      A highly enjoyable thriller that pits a criminal, Jack--who helps people go off the grid after they complete a heist--against the FBI and other criminals that are out to disappear him permanently. Two heists are intertwined throughout the book keeping the tension high, the cast of characters interesting, and the plot moving at a brisk pace. A great debut novel that all fans of thrillers will enjoy. I hope Jack returns in future thrillers.
    • 2/5
      Ghost Man is receiving a lot of good reviews, most of which make a point of putting it in the context of it being the author's first book. While the writing was fine and I found parts of the story interesting, I did not find the book to be exceptional. Ghost Man is a cipher in more ways than one. He would have benefited from some more character development. I also found the pacing to be a bit slow. I didn't hate the book, but I would have a hard time recommending it to anyone.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      I just hate reviews that go on and on telling you every detail about the plot except the ending. Why read the book? Just go to the last chapter after reading the review and you are done. I loved this book. It lets me learn something (and the author has done his research), keeps me reading without skipping parts, is intelligent enough to keep me engaged and generally entertained, just like a good mystery thriller should be.
    • 5/5
      This was totally out of my comfort zone. It was recommended by a friend. Immediately I was drawn into the story. It was strange and I liked that. There were dots that I couldn’t connect and dots that were missing. I kept reading in order to understand the story. Not once was I disappointed. I liked the writer’s style. Granted, it’s not for everyone, but that’s okay. There are other books out there to read. As for me, I’ll follow Roger Hobbs!
    • 5/5
      "When you're alone, the only person who can betray you is yourself." For some people, that's the same as saying when you're alone, you won't get betrayed. For some people, not.Believe the hype. This is a really good book. I was not bored for even one phrase.