The Rizzoli Contract by Kevin Stevens
This is a first novel by an American ex-pat, non-fiction writer and journalist who has settled in Dublin and who is said to have based it on a real-life case he actually worked on. I enjoyed it greatly, but came away asking the following question: to what extent is this book actually a thriller and to what extent a literary novel?
The Rizzoli Contract tells the story of Harry Donohue, a Boston Irish 50-something loser who’s in the process of wrecking the family business – until he’s offered a make-or-break gamble that could haul his ass out of the fire. Or not.
The marketing falls somewhere between the two genres, which might be doing it a bit of a disservice. It makes very good use of an unusual central character – a publisher as opposed to your run-of-the-mill investigator, journalist or lawyer. The setting is atmospheric and there’s a great sense of emotional engagement with the central character.
However, at first I thought that it wasn’t really a thriller at all – that the eponymous book contract was a maguffin and that the story was really about the central character and his struggle to get control of his life again.
But then I decided that this is the case in most thrillers. The characters have an entry point which takes the story so far along its arc. Then it generally goes completely out of control and they are left fighting for survival. This is, in fact, your standard thriller plot, and The Rizzoli Contract does really follow this pattern.
I did feel that, as many readers have said, it did somehow lack the killer punch. This is true, but perhaps does not fully allow for the emotional impact of the final plot twist, a betrayal that is pretty big by anyone’s standards.
It is a good book, and worth reading, especially if you go into it expecting a hybrid of thriller and straight novel rather than your usual doorstopping blockbuster.
Further reading
Tags: literary fiction, thrillers