{"id":18448,"date":"2023-07-11T20:15:22","date_gmt":"2023-07-12T00:15:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=18448"},"modified":"2023-07-11T20:15:22","modified_gmt":"2023-07-12T00:15:22","slug":"the-nice-guy-and-the-devil-by-tom-trott","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=18448","title":{"rendered":"‘The Nice Guy and the Devil,’ by Tom Trott"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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If your great complaint<\/strong> about the world of thriller novels is that they all tend to look the same (and it\u2019s often a valid complaint ), Tom Trott\u2019s Cain <\/em>novels might just be what you\u2019re looking for. I\u2019m not sure The Nice Guy and the Devil<\/a><\/em> was my cup of tea, but it was definitely original.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harrison Byers (known as \u201cCain\u201d) is a Canadian, a former CIA operative (not sure how that works). He\u2019s in Nice, France, enjoying the weather, when he notices a small, unprepossessing man asking clumsy questions about his \u201cmissing sister.\u201d Cain figures him for an amateur trying to be a private eye. But when he notices the woman the man described sitting alone in a caf\u00e9, he can\u2019t help introducing himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They make a date, but the unprepossessing man shows up at Cain\u2019s apartment and commits suicide in front of them. The police come and arrest both him and the woman, and when they\u2019re finally released they spend the night together. She asks him to accompany him to her daughter\u2019s wedding the next day, and he figures why not? Little do they expect that the reception will be attacked by terrorists, one person kidnapped, and several others murdered. Cain sets off in pursuit, soon teaming up with a young Interpol agent who\u2019s the daughter of an old friend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most surprising element in the story is Cain himself. He\u2019s not your bog standard thriller hero. He\u2019s middle-aged, bald and overweight (he actually wears a toupee and a girdle). But he still has his shooting skills and his fighting instincts, along with (sometimes insane) nerve. The story is packed with suspense and danger, the big twist at the end comes at you out of left field, and the conclusion is satisfying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What annoyed me was the author\u2019s habit of not describing characters until they\u2019ve been on stage for a while. This is particularly aggravating when he fails to tell us the character\u2019s race, and then makes race an issue. It\u2019s as if he\u2019s first saying, \u201cLook how colorblind I am,\u201d then turning and saying to the reader, \u201cWhy were you so racist as to assume they were white?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, there\u2019s a devout Christian character in the book, and his faith is treated respectfully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Nice Guy and the Devil<\/em> was a very neat thriller, capably plotted and written. I didn\u2019t love it, but it was professionally done.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If your great complaint about the world of thriller novels is that they all tend to look the same (and it\u2019s often a valid complaint ), Tom Trott\u2019s Cain novels might just be what you\u2019re looking for. I\u2019m not sure The Nice Guy and the Devil was my cup of tea, but it was definitely … Continue reading ‘The Nice Guy and the Devil,’ by Tom Trott<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,15],"tags":[4790,4791,3168],"class_list":["post-18448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-reviews","tag-cain","tag-the-nice-guy-and-the-devil","tag-tom-trott"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18448"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18448\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18449,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18448\/revisions\/18449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}