Rating: 
Summary: Another superb novel from Kerr
Review: This is another one of those books you simply enjoy reading and cannot put down. The story concerns an innocent man placed in prison who has five years to create a revenge. He plans to steal millions of mafia's drug money from a trans-atlantic ferry with the help of his newly met Russian friends in prison. Grippin tale, hard, smart and delivering in every aspect. Excellent.
Rating: 
Summary: Very entertaining comic like thriller.
Review: This is the first book of Kerrs work that I have read. I found it very entertaining and I liked the fast pace it never lost throughout the book. The plot was not extremely fancy but had a few nice twists to it that made reading the book a lot of fun. It is a gangster novel and probably not what you would call literature of high value but it indeed is great entertainment. Some of the scenes and characters might be comic like but at least Kerr tries not to sell it for something else (like he did in Esau with putting in 'scientific' contents that he has no clue of.) This is a perfect book for a long trip and I recommend it to everyone that likes to be entertained with an action packed gangster novel.
Rating: 
Summary: A Poor Man's Elmore Leonard
Review: This was my first Philip Kerr novel - I was aware of the Berlin Noir novels and also aware that Kerr has changed direction in recent years, writing high-concept pre-packaged blockbusters which Hollywood buys for outrageous sums of money. Bearing in mind that the rights to this belong to Tom Cruise and his producing partner, I was expecting to be very impressed. Boy, was I wrong. Written in a bland, unremarkable prose, this reads like a cheap rip-off of a second rate Elmore Leonard novel. Kerr has no ear for the American mob-speak dialogue which makes Leonard such a joy to read. And plot? There's hardly any. Once they get on the boat - it becomes a cheesy romance piece. I'm reminded how well Leonard did the FBI/crook relationship in Out of Sight (and that was one of his weaker efforts). For great (hard-boiled) crime novels, I'm going back to Leonard, James Hall, and Dennis Lehane
Rating:
Summary: This was the tie breaker. 3.5 stars I rounded up.
Review: Unlike many other reviewers, I discovered Mr. Kerr's work much later, so my experience is in working back from "The Shot". I am not surprised by the reviews as few Authors can maintain a level that marks the best of their abilities book after book. Readers not only want the new work to be as good as previous efforts but even better. Of the 3 I have read, "The Shot", "ESAU" and now "A Five Year Plan", it's 2 out of three and I plan to continue working my way back through his work. If the other reviewers are correct, the reading experience should be even better. The enjoyment in this book was the dialogue. It was the strength of the work and ironically was responsible for the poorer parts as well. When good it reminded me of "Get Shorty", when bad, which was very infrequent, it was the result of trying to retain a level of cleverness for too long. One-line remarks are great, but there is a definite limit as to how long they can be sustained, and in 3 or 4 instances I Believe Mr. Kerr pushed too far. It's a fine line from a great run of dialogue to one line too many that kills the entire passage. Like "ESAU" the Governmental Authorities were moronic with the exception of the Female lead. They are not even interesting in how empty-headed they are. Creating a character that is boring, annoying, but interesting to read is a challenge, if the Author misses you get the same reading enjoyment as you would if you were actually dealing with the character. And some of them seem to be uncomfortable in their roles, as they don't have anything to do in the book; they have little to nothing to do with the story. My ranking of this book is on the dialogue at or near it's best, and happily that is the majority of the time. The plot is average as there is nothing so new or clever to keep your attention. The dialogue is very very good, it is also quite off color, bawdy, or really crude depending on your taste. So if you don't care for humor that at times may make you wince, this isn't for you. There is nothing that bad, but for some, there will be just too much. I'm glad I stuck it out for a third book. I hope to enjoy the others as much as other reviewers.
Rating: 
Summary: Daft story reminiscent of the 1970s
Review: We already have one Robert Ludlum. We don't need another. And we certainly don't want to go back to those daft, sub-Bond thrillers of the 1970s, of which this book is eerily reminiscent. The corny, daft story and cardboard characters (three types: tough, sexy or evil - that's your lot) had me thinking of Austen Powers. Except there are no good jokes.
| 
