Duke City Split by Max Austin

Published by Random House/Alibi in April 8, 2014

If you like to root for the good guys or identify with the hero when you read a crime novel, you might want to give Duke City Split a pass. Good guys are in short supply and there is a distinct shortage of heroism. On the other hand, if you enjoy reading crime novels that focus on crime and criminals, Duke City Split is a fast moving, captivating story about a crime's unforeseen consequences.

Johnny Muller tells Mick Wyman about an armored car that delivers money from a casino to a small branch bank in strip mall just outside of Albuquerque. Mick tells his partner, Bud Knox. It seems like an easy score, although Bud prefers not to commit crimes near his Duke City home. Bud is married with children and (except for robbing banks) has settled down. Mick has less to lose. Mick and Bud have never involved a third person before but Johnny wants to participate and they need an extra set of hands to carry all the money. Complications ensue and by the end of the novel, a fair amount of blood has been shed.

In addition to Mick, Bud, and Johnny, the primary characters include a crooked security guard and his crooked wife, a Chicago mobster, and two losers who are briefly mistaken for the actual bank robbers. All of them would like at least a piece of the stolen money, if not the entire score. The only significant characters not motivated by greed are two ineffectual FBI agents, but until the story's end they are relegated to a less significant role, mostly coming on the scene after various acts of mayhem have already been completed.

Duke City Split works because the story is believable and it is told without a wasted word. While the key characters are criminals, at least one of them is portrayed in a sympathetic way. A reader might not root for him, but Max Austin (a pen name of crime novelist Steve Brewer) makes it easy to understand and empathize with him. In the end, like many criminals, he's just a regular guy who makes poor choices. It's trickier to put a reader inside the heads of the bad guys than it is to make a reader cheer for the good guys. Austin does it well.

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