Product Description

In 1928 New Orleans, eighteen-year-old Sonny LaSalle is a top prep student and champion amateur boxer -- and he venerates his fraternal twin uncles, Buck and Russell, armed robbers who love their profession. Sonny secretly believes that he, too, is a natural outlaw and persuades his uncles to take him on as a partner. But when a bank job goes bad, Sonny is sent to jail, where he unintentionally kills a policeman who is the son of the most feared lawman in Louisiana, widely known as "John Bones."

After nine months in the infamous Angola penitentiary, Sonny makes a harrowing escape and manages to reunite with Buck and Russell. The carefree trio head out for the boomtowns of west Texas, where the money flows as freely as the oil, unaware that vengeance follows close behind, as the cool, calculating John Bones begins a relentless campaign to hunt down Sonny ... no matter what.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #551906 in Books
• Published on: 2002-12-12
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

From Amazon.com
Penzler Pick, December 2001: James Carlos Blake has written several novels, but this is the first that can be categorized wholeheartedly as a mystery. Set in the Southwest of 1928, it tells the story of three men who go on a journey of robbery and unintentional murder throughout Louisiana and Texas.

Sonny LaSalle is only a few years younger than his twin uncles, Russell and Buck, and he adores them and their way of life, which involves mostly robbing banks and rigging gambling scams. When he suggests that they take him on as a third partner, they indulge him and let him drive the getaway car on a bank robbery. Sonny is immediately caught and put in a holding cell where a fight breaks out. When Sonny hits a rookie cop who is trying to break up the fight, he inadvertently kills him and is sent to the infamous Angola prison in Louisiana for the long haul. But it's not in Sonny's nature to stay cooped up for long, and he soon escapes, doing what only a few have done before him: running along the levee to freedom and back to his uncles.

From then on, these charming felons career across the landscape stealing just enough money to keep them comfortable, meeting women, and helping damsels in distress. What these carefree villains do not know, but the reader does, is that the rookie cop's father, John Isley Bonham, is not going to simply let Sonny go free. Bonham is a longtime deputy sheriff near retirement. His life has been tragic, and the only joy he ever had was through his son. Bonham is said to have killed more men than any cop in the state. Although he's always claimed self- defense, rumor has it that some of the killings were, in fact, executions. Now he starts his slow, relentless campaign to hunt Sonny down and kill him. Russell, Buck, and Sonny do kill some innocent people, it's true, but compared to Bonham they are amateurs--and Bonham is closing in on them.

For fans of Daniel Woodrell, James Lee Burke, and Robbers, last year's exceptional first novel by Christopher Cook, this book is a must. --Otto Penzler

From Booklist
Blake revisits familiar territory with another story of an outlaw, this time set in Prohibition-era Louisiana and Texas. Sonny LaSalle, the tragic hero, is orphaned at age 18 and decides to take up with his two beloved uncles, lifelong criminals. After a bank robbery gone wrong, he lands in jail, where he accidentally kills a policeman who is the son of a very influential, very frightening man. Sonny is sentenced to 30 years at the Angola penitentiary but soon escapes with his uncles' help. They head to the oil boomtowns of west Texas, accompanied by long-suffering girlfriends and pursued by the revenge-hungry father, whose activities are described in superviolent chapters interspersed with the main story line. This is a fast-moving story with plenty of action and graphic detail but not really the "thriller" it claims to be. The outcome is all too predictable--the love of danger leads the trio straight past any chance at happiness and headlong into disaster. Still, the journey downward will appeal to noir fans. Carrie Bissey
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"Blake puts the roar back into the Roaring Twenties." (Austin Chronicle )

"An eminently readable novel." (Fort Worth Star Telegram )

"Classic Blake, mixing violence with passion, the hardnose with the sensitive...No one out there does this better." (Denver Post )

Customer Reviews

NOT BLAKE'S BEST BUT STILL GOOD ENOUGH
It is cliche but A WORLD OF THIEVES is not James Carlos Blake's best work. The writing style seems flat or maybe controlled, not full of the vibrancy and literary energy of RED GRASS RIVER or IN ROGUE BLOOD. My best guess is that Mr. Blake decided to write a more subdued tale, a little quieter, more subtle than the others and it came out less passionate. A WORLD didn't win any book awards where both RED GRASS and IN ROGUE did, a fact which helps makes my point. But all this is only comparing Blake to Blake and Blake is the best. A WORLD OF THIEVES is still full of action and adventure and it brings to life the 1920's in Texas and Louisiana. You have roadsters and oil wells and speakeasys and boom towns and New Orleans and West Texas. The action includes fisticuffs (our hero is a champion boxer), prison escapes, gun battles and holdups. A particularly sinister villain adds menace to the tale. And there is a love story and a boy-coming-of-age story here as well. Plenty for the Blake fan. Not his best but still pretty good. I give it three and a half shotgun shells out of five.

Not Blakes's Best But Still Good
It is cliche but A WORLD OF THIEVES is not James Carlos Blake's best work. The writing style seems flat or maybe controlled, not full of the vibrancy and literary energy of RED GRASS RIVER or IN ROGUE BLOOD. My best guess is that Mr. Blake decided to write a more subdued tale, a little quieter, more subtle than the others and it came out less passionate. A WORLD didn't win any book awards where both RED GRASS and IN ROGUE did, a fact which helps makes my point. But all this is only comparing Blake to Blake and Blake is the best. A WORLD OF THIEVES is still full of action and adventure and it brings to life the 1920's in Texas and Louisiana. You have roadsters and oil wells and speakeasys and boom towns and New Orleans and West Texas. The action includes fisticuffs (our hero is a champion boxer), prison escapes, gun battles and holdups. A particularly sinister villain adds menace to the tale. And there is a love story and a boy-coming-of-age story here as well. Plenty for the Blake fan. Not his best but still pretty good. I give it three and a half shotgun shells out of five.

Sadly, this one disappoints
I'm a big James Carlos Blake fan and it is painful to have to give A World of Thieves a mixed review. If this book had been written by another author and I had not read Red Grass River, I certainly would be singing the praises of this book. However, I know that Blake can do much better and really all he has done with this book is rewrite Red Grass River, moving the setting from the Everglades to Angola Prison in Louisianna and West Texas.

If you are new to Blake, do yourself a favor and read Red Grass River or In the Rogue Blood and wait until this one comes out in paperback. I think Blake does a tremendous job in recreating the underbelly of past American eras. His characters tend to be people living on the edge, pushed to violence by the forces of society. Rugged individualists. People who will kill savagely without missing a beat. But also people who have a tender heart towards their families and even complete strangers. One minute the protagonist is holding up a mom and pop grocery--the next he is helping an old man change a tire along the side of a hot dusty Texas highway.

There are no easy answers or platitudes in Blake's books. Violence usually begets violence. And if you need happy, conventional endings, look elsewhere. But if you like to turn over a rock and see what's crawling underneath, then I can highly recommend Blake's work.