Caught begins with a prison break. Twenty-five-year-old David Slaney, locked up on charges of marijuana possession, has escaped his cell and sprinted to the highway. There, he is picked up by a friend of his sister’s and transported to a strip bar where he survives his first night on the run. But evading the cops isn’t his only objective; Slaney intends to track down his old partner, Hearn, and get back into the drug business. Along the way, Slaney’s fugitive journey across Canada rushes vibrantly to life as he visits an old flame and adopts numerous guises to outpace authorities: hitchhiker, houseguest, student, lover. When finally he reunites with Hearn just steps ahead of a detective hell-bent on making a high-profile arrest, their scheme sends Slaney to Mexico, Colombia, and back again on an epic quest fueled by luck, charm, and unbending conviction. Moore's most plot-driven novel to date, Caught is a thrillingly charged escapade that thrums with energy and suspense and deftly captures a moment in the late 1970s before the almost folkloric glamour surrounding pot smuggling turned violent. Ripe with bravado, love, ambition, and folly, Caught is about trust and deceit, about the risks we take for the lives we want and the mistakes we can’t outrun.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read and review an ARC of this novel.
Oops. I did it again. I decided to read a book simply because I liked the cover and the fact it was nominated for a prestigious award. Sometimes this type of novel works for me - I like it and enjoy the reading experience. Other times, as was the case with "Caught", I find myself slogging through and forcing myself to finish.
One thing that irritated me to no end was the lack of punctuation! Why do authors do this? So many times I had to reread passages in order to figure out who was talking, or if they were speaking out loud or merely thinking. It's not that I can't figure this stuff out, it's that I don't want to! After a long day of work and family obligations, the last thing I need or want to do is try to figure out what's going on in my supposed leisure reading. Ugh, I left that behind in University.
I suppose I should write something about the characters, but the only one I remember anything about is David Slaney. He's young, handsome, and charismatic, but he makes the stupidest decisions, so he's pretty hard to feel sympathetic towards. Of course there are other characters, like Patterson, the undercover guy trying to take down the whole operation, but again, I didn't really get attached to him.
Yeah, I don't know. Not much of a review, but that's all I've really got to say about this book. Good luck with it if you decide to give it a read.
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