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Easy Money
She's looking for the truth in a place where there are no easy answers-- only deadly secrets...
The daughter of a Florida drug runner, Alison Kerry lives from day to day, in seedy motels, surviving on cigarettes, Wild Turkey, and the adrenaline rush of danger. Allie is a runner and her latest job should go down easy pickup, easy payoff-- easy money. But in a bar outside Seattle, everything goes horribly wrong. Allie finds her contact with a bullet in his brain-- and a government-issued Colt in his jacket.
Suddenly Allie has a killer on her trail, and the computer disk he killed for burning a hole in her pocket. For Allie, it's a cross-country journey through the Cascade Mountains to the winding back roads of Montana and into the darkest corners of a country's secret history. Because somewhere between the killing fields of Vietnam and the wide-open heartlands of America, a horrifying truth is buried. A truth about a people, a war, and one woman's past. A truth Allie may not survive...
The daughter of a Florida drug runner, Alison Kerry lives from day to day, in seedy motels, surviving on cigarettes, Wild Turkey, and the adrenaline rush of danger. Allie is a runner and her latest job should go down easy pickup, easy payoff-- easy money. But in a bar outside Seattle, everything goes horribly wrong. Allie finds her contact with a bullet in his brain-- and a government-issued Colt in his jacket.
Suddenly Allie has a killer on her trail, and the computer disk he killed for burning a hole in her pocket. For Allie, it's a cross-country journey through the Cascade Mountains to the winding back roads of Montana and into the darkest corners of a country's secret history. Because somewhere between the killing fields of Vietnam and the wide-open heartlands of America, a horrifying truth is buried. A truth about a people, a war, and one woman's past. A truth Allie may not survive...
352 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
August 18, 2016
Alison Kerry's childhood was anything but normal. Raised in the Florida Keys by her father, a Vietnam vet-turned-barkeeper and smuggler, Allie learned early on the skills necessary to survive on the wrong side of the American dream. As a young girl, she learned how to drink and fight and shoot and joined her father and his partner on their drug smuggling expeditions before falling into the grip of a nasty cocaine habit. Now in recovery, she has become a courier, driving packages from one part of the country to another.
Allie is not working for UPS or FedEx, but rather for any number of shadowy figures who pay her well for her services. Most often, she doesn't even know what she's delivering; she simply drives the package from point A to point B, collects her pay and moves on to the next job.
A former lover named Joe calls her with a simple assignment: pick up a package near Seattle and deliver it to Houston. No muss, no fuss; Easy Money. It turns out to be anything but, and everything that could go wrong does go wrong, right from the git go. The pickup site is a seedy bar and Allie barely has the package in hand (well, surreptitiously slipped into her back pocket), when two guys come into the bar and kill the guy who delivered it to her.
Things go sideways in a big hurry. Allie is lucky to get out alive, and from there things only get worse. She hops into her Mustang and begins a long odyssey that will take her from Seattle across the country with both the bad guys and the cops hot on her trail. The package she's carrying has the potential to disrupt the lives of some Very Important People and could expose secrets that were supposed to have been buried decades earlier.
It's a compelling trip through the proverbial sordid underbelly of American life, and it's hard to imagine that this book was Jenny Siler's debut novel. It's even harder to believe that she was only in her mid-twenties when she wrote it. It has the depth and the wisdom that one would expect to find in a book from a much more seasoned author in the middle of his or her career. It should appeal to readers who like their tales hard boiled and on the dark and gritty side, on the order of authors like James Crumley who wrote a very strong blurb for the book.
Allie is not working for UPS or FedEx, but rather for any number of shadowy figures who pay her well for her services. Most often, she doesn't even know what she's delivering; she simply drives the package from point A to point B, collects her pay and moves on to the next job.
A former lover named Joe calls her with a simple assignment: pick up a package near Seattle and deliver it to Houston. No muss, no fuss; Easy Money. It turns out to be anything but, and everything that could go wrong does go wrong, right from the git go. The pickup site is a seedy bar and Allie barely has the package in hand (well, surreptitiously slipped into her back pocket), when two guys come into the bar and kill the guy who delivered it to her.
Things go sideways in a big hurry. Allie is lucky to get out alive, and from there things only get worse. She hops into her Mustang and begins a long odyssey that will take her from Seattle across the country with both the bad guys and the cops hot on her trail. The package she's carrying has the potential to disrupt the lives of some Very Important People and could expose secrets that were supposed to have been buried decades earlier.
It's a compelling trip through the proverbial sordid underbelly of American life, and it's hard to imagine that this book was Jenny Siler's debut novel. It's even harder to believe that she was only in her mid-twenties when she wrote it. It has the depth and the wisdom that one would expect to find in a book from a much more seasoned author in the middle of his or her career. It should appeal to readers who like their tales hard boiled and on the dark and gritty side, on the order of authors like James Crumley who wrote a very strong blurb for the book.
August 30, 2016
Jenny's 1998 work reads like magic, enfolding you into her fictive dream without a hitch. Only thing wrong with this one is that it comes to an end.
"I hoard the familiarity of name and place. I won't be coming back here." -- Jenny Siler, Easy Money
"I hoard the familiarity of name and place. I won't be coming back here." -- Jenny Siler, Easy Money
December 23, 2017
I tried, but this was a no-go. Too many sour notes & holes. A couple of my GR friends who I usually agree with on this sort of book really liked it, too. After finally taking a break before the halfway mark to listen to a SF novella, I came back to it with renewed hope only to find it even worse.
January 27, 2014
This book surprised me. It opens like a general crime-mystery-thriller, but turns out to be about love, loyalty, forgiveness, and family. It's a damned impressive first novel. I'll be reading more of her stuff.
September 24, 2014
RATING: 4.25
She’s been a criminal almost her entire life. As a child, Allie Kerry helped her father and his cohorts as they smuggled drugs or guns or other products around the Florida Keys. As an adult, she’s a recovering drug addict who has continued in the same line of work, using a car instead of a boat. She is a driver of “goods unknown”. Her contact tells her where to go and when, no questions asked about what she’s transporting. The idea of living the American dream with the white picket fence and 2.4 kids is as repellant to her as the thought of being abducted by aliens.
The job she’s on now is a puzzler. It goes wrong almost from the start. She’s supposed to meet someone in Seattle who is going to give her the goods. She does so, but the meet is interrupted and violence ensues. From that point on, she’s on the run. When she breaks the rules and looks at what was handed over, she finds it’s a computer disk. Working with a longtime friend, they are able to look at the contents and find something that looks like a game and information having to do with Viet Nam events of years ago. Someone is intent on obtaining the disk. Even though she’s in a remote location, the pursuers find her; and she knows that she’s been betrayed. That means some serious pedal to the metal.
Riding with Allie is a non-stop adventure. She’s bold and brash, intelligent and intuitive, and can kick butt with the best of them. Her goal is to get back to Florida and uncover the betrayer as well as to put her father’s ashes to rest, but everyone is on the lookout for her. The deaths that occurred during the meet have made the national news, and she’s a top 10 fugitive. I found that somewhat implausible; it didn’t seem to me that two deaths would warrant that kind of national news coverage.
As much as I enjoyed the tough girl character of Allie and the high action of the narrative, I had a major problem with the book. The prose was beautiful, at times lyrical. However, Siler chose to deliver the narrative in present tense. I found that device to be extremely cumbersome and awkward. In fact, I could not adjust to it and remained irritated by it throughout the entire 262 pages of the book.
Beyond that, Siler has done an excellent job of depicting some complex and dysfunctional characters and relationships. The book is a terrific thriller with exciting action sequences and a hardboiled heroine that I am planning to meet again. A very good debut novel.
She’s been a criminal almost her entire life. As a child, Allie Kerry helped her father and his cohorts as they smuggled drugs or guns or other products around the Florida Keys. As an adult, she’s a recovering drug addict who has continued in the same line of work, using a car instead of a boat. She is a driver of “goods unknown”. Her contact tells her where to go and when, no questions asked about what she’s transporting. The idea of living the American dream with the white picket fence and 2.4 kids is as repellant to her as the thought of being abducted by aliens.
The job she’s on now is a puzzler. It goes wrong almost from the start. She’s supposed to meet someone in Seattle who is going to give her the goods. She does so, but the meet is interrupted and violence ensues. From that point on, she’s on the run. When she breaks the rules and looks at what was handed over, she finds it’s a computer disk. Working with a longtime friend, they are able to look at the contents and find something that looks like a game and information having to do with Viet Nam events of years ago. Someone is intent on obtaining the disk. Even though she’s in a remote location, the pursuers find her; and she knows that she’s been betrayed. That means some serious pedal to the metal.
Riding with Allie is a non-stop adventure. She’s bold and brash, intelligent and intuitive, and can kick butt with the best of them. Her goal is to get back to Florida and uncover the betrayer as well as to put her father’s ashes to rest, but everyone is on the lookout for her. The deaths that occurred during the meet have made the national news, and she’s a top 10 fugitive. I found that somewhat implausible; it didn’t seem to me that two deaths would warrant that kind of national news coverage.
As much as I enjoyed the tough girl character of Allie and the high action of the narrative, I had a major problem with the book. The prose was beautiful, at times lyrical. However, Siler chose to deliver the narrative in present tense. I found that device to be extremely cumbersome and awkward. In fact, I could not adjust to it and remained irritated by it throughout the entire 262 pages of the book.
Beyond that, Siler has done an excellent job of depicting some complex and dysfunctional characters and relationships. The book is a terrific thriller with exciting action sequences and a hardboiled heroine that I am planning to meet again. A very good debut novel.
March 9, 2016
EASY MONEY is what the main character of this book is looking to make, but her assignment as courier this time is anything but easy. Allie Kerry (the heroine of our story) normally runs various deliveries for her shady friend, Joey, a former lover--she got involved with this whole business through her dad and his friend, Cyrus (nothing like keeping business in the family).
Anyway, a simple assignment (easy money, as she frequently repeats, as if trying to convince herself) to pick up a package goes all wrong--Al's contact (she goes by "Al," too) ends up dead in a seedy bar and she's got this disc--something that others seem willing to kill for. So she takes off, looking to find out what it is she's got.
What follows is a cross-country journey from Seattle to the Florida Keys (Allie's home)--one packed with suspense, more dead bodies and some fascinating characters. Before you know it, Al's been set up for the murders. Now she has both thugs and cops to contend with.
So Allie keeps running, crossing the ever-changing landscape which gets richly described (perhaps a bit too rich at times), along with thoughts of her past and trying to figure out just what the hell's going on.
But (as the Amazon review put it) "fancy-pants prose aside," this book is highly readable. Al's such a strong, unconventional character. She totes enough guns to overload a metal detector (no less than three). And she ain't afraid to use those babies.
The entire review is online at http://thebookgrrl.blogspot.com/2009/...
Anyway, a simple assignment (easy money, as she frequently repeats, as if trying to convince herself) to pick up a package goes all wrong--Al's contact (she goes by "Al," too) ends up dead in a seedy bar and she's got this disc--something that others seem willing to kill for. So she takes off, looking to find out what it is she's got.
What follows is a cross-country journey from Seattle to the Florida Keys (Allie's home)--one packed with suspense, more dead bodies and some fascinating characters. Before you know it, Al's been set up for the murders. Now she has both thugs and cops to contend with.
So Allie keeps running, crossing the ever-changing landscape which gets richly described (perhaps a bit too rich at times), along with thoughts of her past and trying to figure out just what the hell's going on.
But (as the Amazon review put it) "fancy-pants prose aside," this book is highly readable. Al's such a strong, unconventional character. She totes enough guns to overload a metal detector (no less than three). And she ain't afraid to use those babies.
The entire review is online at http://thebookgrrl.blogspot.com/2009/...
July 11, 2010
Fun. Great, easy read. But underneath, it makes you think about making "easy money". Again, typical Siler, another unusual setting. I love the fact that she's not setting her stories in New York, LA, SF or Miami. Off the beaten track.
I got a lot of fun out of using Google Maps (& the photos) to see exactly where the story was going. Helped me to visualise the area far more vividly.
I got a lot of fun out of using Google Maps (& the photos) to see exactly where the story was going. Helped me to visualise the area far more vividly.
August 23, 2019
Beautifully written and much more poignant than I would have imagined.
August 18, 2021
Read in 1999. First time novelist writes a superior thriller.
February 27, 2022
A good read, gritty and well paced. Siler's first book.
July 13, 2025
While I like mysteries, this type of story veers off my normal path. It had enough twists & turns to keep me interested to the end.
October 25, 2015
I don't think the narrator, Betty Bobbit was suited to this book. Not sure how much this influenced my rating perhaps it did - how can it not? Sounded at times somewhat inappropriately hysterical and had the intonation wrong.
Like some other readers I found the characters lacked empathy or discourse (even in their thoughts) with the effect of their current choice of lifestyle and careers in drug running and crime.
Yet when exploring the mistakes and crimes during wartime Vietnam empathy for innocent victims kicks in.
This made the novel feel inauthentic and that the main character was a bit of an idiot and highly self absorbed.
However it was well written and quite a good story.
Like some other readers I found the characters lacked empathy or discourse (even in their thoughts) with the effect of their current choice of lifestyle and careers in drug running and crime.
Yet when exploring the mistakes and crimes during wartime Vietnam empathy for innocent victims kicks in.
This made the novel feel inauthentic and that the main character was a bit of an idiot and highly self absorbed.
However it was well written and quite a good story.
July 19, 2009
Alice Kerry started running packages when she was in college. She learned not to ask questions, just deliver the package and get her money. She was hired for what was supposed to be an easy money run. The person who delivered the package was killed before he could even give her the payment. Alice takes off across the country still intent on completing the trade but she is being followed by killers who seem to know where she will be every step of the way. She knows she is being betrayed but she doesn't know who or why.
The book is well written but the characters are not very likeable.
The book is well written but the characters are not very likeable.
August 8, 2013
The plot sounded great, but there was simply no one to like in this book. Serious drugs, alcohol, casual sex, and pretty much a total lack of ethics. What's to like? I kept expecting more, and didn't get it.
December 27, 2007
What an interesting way to make millons.
Illegal but nonetheless interesting.
Illegal but nonetheless interesting.
June 23, 2009
Terrible, really hard to follow and written terribly.
January 22, 2011
This was so not my kind of book and I couldn’t put it down. A woman’s father dies and she’s off to the funeral by way of an illegal drop of some kind of computer disk. She is set up along the way.
June 17, 2013
Not worth reading. Literally have skipped pages. Too slow, lots of disconnections.
June 30, 2013
Excellent first novel from Siler. Three and a half stars.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews