In the newest Wolfe-family adventure from James Carlos Blake, Rudy and Frank Wolfe are engaging in routine miscellaneous business for their family when they stumble upon a stash of high-quality pornographic films in a raid. The plot thickens when their Aunt Catalina, the family matriarch aged 115, recognizes a resemblance to her long-lost sister in one of the young performers. Catalina tasks the boys with tracking the girl down, however improbable a connection may be.
It is but one mark of Blake’s immense talents to note that the Wolfes, unabashed outlaw activities notwithstanding, are the good guys in this series ... an edge-of-the-seat ride that will leave readers hurrying to the end ... Blake somehow keeps you cheering for the Wolfe family, who would be bad guys in any other context; here, though, they are the very best of a bad lot. I keep going back and rereading the previous books in this masterful series. I enjoy them more each time and give thanks that life would be so good as to give me another.
In the long-running Wolfe series, James Carlos Blake describes the family adventures in smooth and expert style. Two plot characteristics set his latest book apart from the rest. First, it involves the family in the porn business for the first time and, second, it finds motivation in the Wolfe matriarch who must be the most ancient operator in the entire world of crime. She’s Catalina Luisiana Little Wolfe, 115 years old, lucid, domineering and capable of driving the Wolfe men to unusually death-defying endeavours.
The noirish tone is certainly evident here, but this is not as dark as others in the series, more in the vein of a Thomas Perry caper novel, with plenty of blood. As such, it is never less than thoroughly entertaining.
