Synopsis/blurb...
Violet Winters was a master criminal. A one-woman crimewave. Until lockdown happened. Now she’s stuck in the house catching up on box sets and ordering crap off the internet.
And then she finds out about The Lakehouse. A former rehab facility, the residents have been thrown out and replaced with a roll-call of some of the most dangerously stupid celebrities in this hemisphere all indulging in a torrent of excess while the rest of the world cowers in their beds.
And that doesn’t sit well with Violet.
At the centre of the The Lakehouse is a vault and inside… the combined riches of every one of these over-privileged idiots. Violet hatches a cunning plan to pull off an audacious robbery and begins by planting a man on the inside.
But when does anything ever go to plan?
With a social media starlet hell-bent on revealing Violet’s identity to her millions of followers and a deranged MMA fighter on their trail things rapidly go from bad to worse.
If she can pull off the world’s only socially-distanced heist, it will be the stuff of legend.
If she can’t she might very well end up floating face-down in the lake.
Rockdown in Lockdown is the latest book in the Kilchester series. It mixes high-octane heist shenanigans with sharp, surreal wit.
Rockdown in Lockdown was a fast-paced, fun-filled romp, just right to lift a dose of the January blues. It's Adam Maxwell's latest Kilchester caper and having enjoyed three previous entries in the series I had high hopes for this one.
Our heist is targeted at an exclusive, underwater facility currently host to a sheltering cabal of the rich and famous. Lucas is our man undercover; Zoe, our technology wiz with drones and gadgets. Violet is the ringmaster and Katy the muscle. Barry is... err, Barry (Ok, I forget his role.) The victims of the crime are unlikable, which makes it a lot easier to side with our band of well-meaning villains. Dello, the social media queen is the nasty one in the piece. Shes uses everyone in her orbit. Hagan, an MMA champion is her latest cuckold. His encounter with Katie is pivotal and epic.
Maxwell also touches on some of the more annoying traits experienced in lockdown .... hoarding, shortages, selfishness, isolation and mental health. Here the selfish get their comeuppance eventually, though not without a few scares and setbacks along the way. Loneliness is overcome by friendship and support and a strong sense of camaraderie among our Kilchester crew of Violet, Zoe, Katie, Barry and Lucas. The author also manages to have some fun at the ridiculousness of celebrity culture and the obsession with social media, likes and popularity.
Lots to like. Humour, action, a catch-up with familiar characters, a sense of topicality and a really entertaining and slightly different from the usual heist.
4 from 5
Adam Maxwell has been enjoyed before.
Kill it with Fire (2018)
The Dali Deception (2016)
The Defective Detective: Murder on the Links (2011)
Dial M for Monkey (2006)
Read - January, 2022
Published - 2022
Page count - 218
Source - review copy from author
Format - Kindle
This does sound like a good setup for a caper, Col. And I respect an author who make make you feel sympathy for con artists, crooks, and so on. That's not easy to do. And I like that dose of real life (the pandemic) woven through the story, too. My guess is, more and more fiction will include it as writers work out new plots.
ReplyDeleteI think we'll definitely be reading about it Margot in the years ahead. Hopefully we will have stopped living it!
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