The Deal Goes Down by Larry Beinhart

Summary:

Ex-private eye Tony Casella lives in the Catskill mountains, southern New York, a lonely old tough guy whose body can no longer do what it once did. His wife and son are dead; his daughter barely talks to him; his bank is threatening to repossess his house. But a chance encounter with a rich young woman on a train changes everything. He is hired to kill her superrich, Jeffrey Epstein-ish husband. That job leads to others and he joins a small start-up whose mission is to save women from abusive marriages – and make a tidy profit to boot. Tony’s problems seem to be over, but are they? An old, angry associate is determined to get his cut of Tony’s earnings, murky government agents start to tail him, and when he s sent to the Austrian alps to kill a Russian oligarch and rescue his American wife, all hells breaks loose. Packed with action The Deal Goes Down is an unforgettable portrait of a Lion in Winter who still has a few tricks up his sleeve, from a writer garlanded with awards and critical acclaim.

My Review:

After a 30-year hiatus crime writer Larry Beinhart brings back ex-private eye Tony Castella in The Deal Goes Down (Melville House) which is published this month. Life really has been tough for this tough old private eye, on top of everything that life has thrown at him, now the banks are closing in on him and threatening to take his home from him. Just how low can life get. But then a chance encounter could turn things around for. Or does it in the end?

Tony Castella is now 70 years-of-age, and is on a train journey musing over how life has turned against him, and wondering what he can do to get out of the financial crisis he is in. No-one not even his daughter. But on that train is a wealthy woman who knows he was once a private detective who got results even if they were in a questionable way. She has a $100,000 proposal for Castella, she wants him to kill her husband. But why, it turns that he is an abusive husband who has been more than just carrying on behind her back. She wants him dead. Stone cold dead.

But this job with its lucrative reward soon gets out and his former partner is looking for a cut of the reward. So it goes that one good case turns into another case but this one has serious risks attached for this ageing private eye, now he is hired to rescue the wife and son that have been taken from a very wealthy Russian, but this is where things hairy in more ways than one. Could Tony Castella have taken on one case too many, these Russian’s are armed to the teeth and won’t go quietly. Bullets are flying and so are the bodies.

One thing I will say is this is a romping good thriller from a great crime writer who can spin a really good story with some humour added. This has it all, great characters.

288 Pages.

My thanks to  Nikki Griffiths (Melville House Publishing) for the review Copy of  The Deal Goes Down by Larry Beinhart Published on 11^th August 2022 and is now to pre-order through Waterstones, Amazon and through your local independent bookshop or through Bookshop.org that supports your local independent bookshop. UK Bookshop.org