The Wheelman

The Wheelman by Duane Swierczynski is a non-stop action story about a mute Irish get-away driver and a bank heist that goes wrong. Seemingly well planned on paper, somebody turned traitor and sold the robbers out. Patrick Lennon felt that everyone in Philadelphia was after him. He escaped from the Russian Mob, the Italian Mafia, the police, the private investigators and other heisters numerous times only to have them come after him again.

This is not the first book by this author that I have read. He blends action and violence with humor and turns out an engrossing story that explodes across the pages. It’s full of double crosses and twists as Lennon scours the streets of Philly for the missing $650 thousand from the heist. The show more violence is quick and frequent and just when you think you know what's going on, someone pulls a double cross and the story takes a sharp turn.

I found The Wheelman to be an excellent read and one I would recommend to all lovers of crime fiction. Just remember to buckle up when you get into a car alongside of The Wheelman! show less

Dear Mr Swierczynski:

I hate you for being such a good author. By hate, I mean envy, and by author I mean sheer awesome dude. So, to recap, I envy you for being a sheer awesome dude.

I read The Wheelman over a couple day span on the local transit system. It was less polished than your later novels such as Severance Package or The Blonde. It is weird to describe pulpy books as polished, but I am sure you are picking up what I am putting down.

I know it is your book and as such, you already know the plot, but bear with me while I summarize what I read. In a nutshell, The Wheelman is a back and forth tale about a mute getaway driver in a botched getaway. Robbing a Wachovia bank was easy, the plan was solid and the route out of inner Philly show more was mapped and ready to go. Unfortunately, someone spilled the beans on the plan and the getaway turned more into getalottapainintheass.

From there, things just get bloody.. very very bloody. I don’t think a single character makes it through the plot with out landing some horrible flesh wound. Were you eating a lot of spicy foods when you wrote this? Recovering from surgery and on a multitude of steroids? Were you mugged and left for dead in Mexico, lying in the cold desert night considering how you would pay back those who wronged you?

Regardless, The novel was awesome, and I would love to drink a beer and chat about the wrongness of being in a corrugated pipe, 60 ft down with a corpse on top limiting movement as one bleeds out.. Call me. We’ll go to the Horse Brass pub.

Dear everyone else who is not Mr. Swierczynski,

This book was goddamned good. show less

Well. That was quite something. I know skin-of-the-teeth escapes are standard for main characters, but here it's a mad scramble from one close call to the next. It surely doesn't get monotonous, but one does start to run out of breath following along as the characters essentially stagger from one pummeling to the next, and, now that I think of it, 'skin-of-the-teeth' is a fitting phrase to use, considering both modern usage and the original sense as Job meant it...guess this book has both, doesn't it? Sigh... Dammit, Lennon, you couldn't pull just ONE more miraculous escape outta your arse? Ah, who'm I kidding, everyone he knew was dead, even the ones who betrayed him, he's been crashed into, bludgeoned, dropped down a pipe, shot, show more pistol-whipped, singed, bludgeoned, drugged, burned with acid, probably shot again, flash-grenaded, and dumped down the same pipe by his would-be brother-in-law....hell, time for a nap. But still. At the end of the book I just spent a while pouting like a little kid, all, 'Awww, no fair!' show less

One Kickass Crime Novel

I had to put down one of Stephen King's long-winded tales, as well as a Dean Koontz self-absorbed Oddity because I didn't want to stop reading "The Wheelman." I'll get back to those guys later, but for now I'm going to hunt down the next Swierczynski crime novel—way more fun.

The Wheelman, Lennon crashes his way through the bank's front doors only to suffer a highly imaginative menagerie of violence, betrayal and pursuit. For the mute getaway man everything goes wrong all the time, yet he survives . . . or does he? You gotta read this thing.

Mr. Swierczynski (try to type that 3 times fast) crafts one hell of a crime novel. More than a noir mystery, his bizarre twists are the stuff of nose bleeds. All done with show more gritty characters worth following in a fast paced style that grabs you by the eyeballs and won't let go. He initially reminded me of one of my all-time crime writing faves, Charlie Huston. Yet he's unique beyond comparison.

You really gotta read this thing! show less

I had the privilege of reading Duane Swierczynski's THIS HERE'S A STICK-UP, his non-fiction tome of bank robbery facts and figures, a few years back when it first came out. In THE WHEELMAN, Mr. Swierczynski takes fact, mixes it up with a whole lot of fiction, and comes up with a thrilling crime debut that's well worth the read!

We first meet Lennon, a wheelman or get-away driver, waiting outside a Wachovia bank in Philadelphia as his two associates, Bling and Holden, get caught on their way out of the bank with the $650,000 take. Somehow, Lennon, a mute Irishman who knows nothing more about robbery than how to get away, manages to retrieve his buddies and hightail it out of the city. Unfortunately, someone--in the form of a black show more SUV--manages to stop Lennon and the get-away car in its tracks.

Cue to Lennon, supposedly dead, in the process of being dumped into a pipe at a Philadelphia Children's Museum construction site. Thankfully, Lennon's not as dead as he looks, and he manages to outsmart his two body-dumpers. Not so fortunate for them when they realize what a pissed-off Irish mute can do for revenge.

Suddenly, getting out of Philadephia isn't as easy a trick as it was supposed to be. Bling and Holden appear to be dead at the bottom of said pipe, the $650,000 is missing, there's a few retired ex-cops on his butt, and both the Russian Mafiya and some old-time Philadephia mobsters are after him--and everyone wants a piece of the bank take.

As things go from bad to worse, with blown-up buildings, lots of gunfire, knife torture, and some really cool close calls, THE WHEELMAN leads us on a chase to find the money from the bank heist and get the heck out of dodge.

Besides being an action-packed, edge-of-your-seat crime thriller, THE WHEELMAN is just pure fun. With interesting facts thrown in--I hadn't realized that it was DilLINger, not DillinGER--and some laugh-out-loud moments--trademark "Scratch-Your-Balls-Until-The-Feds-Arrive"--this is one book you really don't want to miss. show less

Two dead bank robbers, a mute wheelman and $650,000 formerly belonging to Wachovia Bank (now missing). A children's museum, Russian thugs, a pregnant girlfriend, a dirty cop and the Italian mafia. Sit tight, 'cause we're just getting started.

All-in-all it wasn't my favorite of his works (that would be The Blonde), but in my opinion, no one writes modern noir quite like Swierczynski (whose name I just love to practice saying). Swierczynski. I always enjoy his strong female characters but know not to get attached to anybody because there are no sacred cows with Swierczynski - everybody is fair game. He likes twists and he doesn't like to spoon feed the reader, so keep up. At certain points I had to take stock of who some characters were show more again and who was dead and who was alive. Yes, there's a lot going on here and quite the body count too, but that's par for the course. Enjoy. show less

Another great whiz-bang, non-stop action caper---I read THE BLONDE a year ago, and loved it. THE WHEELMAN is just as good. Lennon is the mute getaway driver of a three-man bank robber team. He's very good at what he does, but unfortunately this job goes south fast. He ends up stuck in Philadelphia with the Russian Mob, a greedy ex-cop, the Italian Mafia and a host of others after him. In the meantime he is trying to get to the $650,000 that was stashed in the trunk of a car in an anonymous parking lot, but the car has disappeared. Story goes at breakneck speed, has a high body count and some wicked black humor. Recommended!