A Night at the Shore

Knighton’s pulse-pounding third Nameless Thief thriller (after A Few Days Away) follows the series’ unnamed narrator as he attempts to survive a job gone wrong. Buddy, an Atlantic City card dealer and fencer of stolen goods with a reputation for being more dangerous than the clients he serves, hires the narrator to rob a high-roller named Charlie. Since Charlie typically visits Buddy’s casino on Friday nights, Buddy suggests that the narrator hit Charlie’s home then. When the narrator does so, the job goes south almost immediately—a hidden alarm sends cops to the home before he can escape, and he resorts to knocking out the officers so he can get away. Afterward, he goes on the run from both the law and the allies Charlie has accrued through his position as an Atlantic County Board commissioner (an affiliation the narrator discovers mid-robbery). The more complicated the narrator’s escape gets, the bloodier the action becomes. Knighton’s gifts for pacing and atmosphere make his antihero’s perils leap off the page. Contemporary noir fans will devour this. (Jan.)