Review: Bandit Love by Massimo Carlotto

Title: Bandit Love
Author: Massimo Carlotto
Genre: Thriller - Noir
Source: FirstReads
Length: Novel
Reviewed by Jasmyn
*This book was received in exchange for an honest review*

Closing the door on a crime ridden past, Marco Buratti plans to spend the rest of his days in the darkness of a seedy nightclub sipping Calvados and listening to the blues. But things don’t quite work out as he planned: though he may be through with his past, his past isn’t through with him. When his gangster friend, Beniamino Rossini’s girlfriend is kidnapped, Buratti is forced to investigate a case of international drug dealing. He will be thrown headfirst into the underworld he had struggled to escape. Here, new and old criminal organizations collide and innocent bystanders are as hard to find as straight cops. 

Marco “The Alligator” Buratti is not only one of the most fully realized characters in contemporary crime fiction but also the ideal vivisector of a world in which criminals hold all the cards.

Marco and his two best friends are all ex-cons gone good - mostly.  They hard to look out for the people they care about without bending the rules too far.  They have their own code of honor that made it almost hard to believe they were once the "bad guys" - at least until they did something illegal...

The biggest draw back in this book for me was trying to keep the three men separate.  Their histories and actions started to merge and I'm still not sure if I have it all straight as to who did what.  Their plan to find Sylvie's kidnappers and then to seek out revenge wasn't all that complicated so there weren't any tricky details to try and keep track of.  But it was still very interesting.  This was my first foray into this genre and it was a great starter.