The 500

Mike Ford was following his father into a life of crime, when he chose to go straight and instead worked his way through Harvard Law School. Now he's landed the ultimate job with the Davies Group, a powerful political consulting firm run by the charismatic Henry Davies. But he's about to discover that power comes with a price.

Mike Ford soon finds out that there’s serious corruption going on at his new job and he decides to secretly investigate. This gets him into a lot of trouble throughout the rest of the book. His con man tricks and other criminal skills learned in his early life were interesting and came in very handy. He was a likeable character but many of his decisions were detrimental to himself. The story was over the top but show more there was a lot of action and it was entertaining. show less

The 500, a first novel by a Harvard graduate and former reporter for The Atlantic, succeeds as a zippy beach read. Other reviewers have compared it repeatedly to The Firm, and I too find the parallels so strong that it mars the story's originality, making it feel like a hipper, amped up variation of the story that put John Grisham on the map. Like Mitch in The Firm, Mike Ford is hand-selected by the leader of a high-end boutique that looks to indoctrinate our best and brightest into its shady culture. Sure there are some differences. The Davies Group is a Washington consulting firm rather than a law firm, and Mike's criminal past is the antithesis of Mitch's squeaky clean resume.

Despite the fact that the hook and basic story line are show more distractingly derivative, the novel comes across as fresh and engaging because of Mike's winning first-person narrative voice. This guy is a trip, roasting the Beltway's obsession with power, providing an insider's view of D.C.'s landmarks and party-scene debauchery, and treating the reader to all manner of insights into the mindset and tricks of the con man. Mike's ireverent attitude and banter manage to power the story clean through the beginning and middle, but his bottomless bag of tricks wears thin toward the end; his ability to wiggle out of impossible situtations and the irrationality of some of his decisions seem written purely for Hollywood's benefit.

As you can tell, I have mixed feelings about this novel. Fives stars worth of fun, three stars worth of substance. Hopefully the film adaptation will smooth over some of the rough edges and improve on the book in a way that The Firm's adaptation did not.

-Kevin Joseph, author of "The Champion Maker" show less

Matthew Quirk, thanks so much for a great book. I read it in two days--that says a lot. At first, about half way through, I could not help thinking of thriller author, Thomas Perry and his Jane Whitfield novels. Jane is a con of the first order, but this book introduces Mike Ford and explains how he became a con artist. I liked many things about the book--First, I loved the imaginative cons--very clever. Second, occasionally the author will address the reader directly- "Stiil awake? Bravo. " I loved it. Then there are the references to literature or movies (Plastics as a password. Shawshank Redemption) which are not fully explained, but left to the reader's prior knowledge. Younger readers may not "get" the references! Towards the end, show more I was fearful that this might just be a stand-alone novel, but, Thanks! Quirk leaves the door open for more Mike Ford novels. I hope so because I loved this one--a whole new look and setting- The Bowels of Washington, the Davies group. Quirk does bury a few striking characters, but he obviously has the imagination to invent more. Bravo! show less

I love corruption and espionage stories. This one was interesting and fast-paced. Don't expect this one to shake the world. It's farfetched, leaves some questions, and the main character does stupid things and has even stupider thoughts. However, this is a light, fun read like most action thrillers.
Looking forward to the next book.

Frankly it’s a mixed blessing any time you get sent a good book to review. The positive is obvious, you get to read a good book; the downside is that when you’re writing your review it’s much easier to be negative than positive.

Mike Ford is the son of a con man and well along that road himself when he gets busted and instead of serving time chooses a path in the navy and goes straight eventually working on a law degree and a masters in business when he’s scooped up by the head of the Davies Group, the most powerful influence group in Washington DC. Ford starts his way up the ladder using the grifter skills he learned when he was younger when suddenly everything goes pear shaped and he has to use those same skills to extradite show more himself from the situation.

The 500 is fun and it’s written at a fairly breakneck pace. Matt Quick’s debut novel reminds me in many ways Josh Bazell’s debut, Beat the Reaper, in that both books are thrillers revolving around people from the crime world trying to go straight in white collar professions and failing, both novels have a perchance for jumping around in the time sequence, are extremely fast-paced, and both have a nice edge of weird to them. The 500 gets a strong recommendation from me for anyone who is looking for an entertaining novel and I look forward to seeing what else Matt Quick has up his sleeves in the future. show less

This is a very, very good book. You'll care for the characters, trail the twists of plot with interest, and consider carefully what you've just read as you finish. Mostly, they will be thoughts of how the well-known great and the seldom-seen greater are most often pusillanimous, peremptory, and ultimately powerless puppets who live and die to see their schemes gang aft a-gley. A definite recommendation for easy-read fiction.

As a note if interest, the back cover of my advance copy tells us the issuing investment which the publisher proposes: $500,000! It worries me, though, that it's now mid-July, and I haven't heard diddly squat about it. If it had been released in early June, I would suggest you get yourself a copy. If (1) you want to show more save $25, and (2) you have the morals of most of the people populating this story, go to any beach in the country and shout, “Look! Over there! It's a mermaid!” As the sunbathers throw down their reading and rush to the shore to see, you should have half a hundred copies of “The 500” left behind in the sand to chose from. show less

Handling & Tema : 4/5
Karaktärerna: 4/5
Miljöbeskrivning: 4/5
Språk och berättarkonst 4/5 : En helt ok thriller. Om en ung kille som kommer från slummen , pappan sitter i fängelset, mamman har fått och lämnat efter sig stora sjukhus räkningar. Mike vill inte sluta som sin pappa och därför pluggar han till jurist. Genom att lyckas imponera på rätt människa gör han en komet karriär i Washington.
Han börjar umgås med mäktiga män och plötsligt ser han att det inte finns några skillnader mellan kriminella från hans förflutna och dessa mäktiga män är .