DANIEL VLASATY - STAY UGLY (2020)

Synopsis/blurb......

Eric is an ex-con, bareknuckle boxer better known around his Chicago neighborhood as “Ugly.” He wants to shed his past, build a life with his family, but his past won’t be so easily left behind. His junkie brother Joe has stolen $100K from a powerful drug dealer—and Ugly’s on the hook unless he hands Joe over.

Which is gonna be hard considering he has no idea where Joe is.

Ugly and his “business partner” Nicky hit the streets to find him, each step taking Eric back into the violent life he’s desperate to leave behind. Ugly’s done with it all. He’s pissed, sad, and exhausted, but he’s gotta keep moving if he wants any chance of Joe—and himself—getting out alive.

Praise for STAY UGLY:

“Daniel Vlasaty’s Stay Ugly is a vivid, visceral and bone-crunching tale of loyalty, loss and redemption.” —Paul D. Brazill, author of Last Year’s Man and Man of the World

Another enjoyable trip around Chicago's meaner streets with author Daniel Vlasaty navigating and main character, Eric, better known as Ugly, the company for our journey.

Bare knuckle boxing, hopes for a different life, hopes somewhat dashed with an inevitable descent back into the underbelly of the city....... drugs dealers, a delinquent brother who Eric feels he failed through his absence, family, regrets, history, a rip off, missing money, old friends and acquaintances reunited, and Eric in the frame to put things right, in a late night trawl through the lass salubrious parts of Chicago.

I do enjoy books about criminals, lowlifes, the disadvantaged, addicts, the reckless ..... people making poor choices and the fall-out from them ..... violence, conflict, pain, death, loss, retribution and good intentions going South.

Great story, hardly original but it worked for me. Chicago setting, decent pace, interesting main character and a decent support cast. Not over long. Job done.

My kind of author, my kind of book.

4.5 from 5

Daniel Vlasaty has been enjoyed before - Only Bones and A New and Different Kind of Pain

Read - June, 2020
Published - 2020
Page count - 212
Source - review copy from Chris at All Due Respect
Format - paperback