LUCKY TOM

An Uber driver is pulled into a deadly drug ring in Muchnik’s debut crime novel.

Tom Sullivan is barely scraping by as an Uber driver, so when a flashy gentleman with a Harvard business degree, François Laax, offers him $500 cash to deliver a package to an apartment on the other side of Boston, he immediately agrees. Tom doesn’t plan on staying in François’ employ for long, but he quickly takes a liking to Molly Mancini, the young art student François is trying to convince to help him start an escort service. Meanwhile, the fentanyl that Tom is unwittingly transporting is causing deaths all over Boston. Police detective Lou DelVecchio is tasked with catching whoever is behind the spike in overdoses, and it doesn’t take him long to learn François’ name. Luckily for him, Lou’s favorite sex worker, Gina Bel Geddes, counts the dealer among her customers. As the cops close in, Tom and Molly take to opportunity to steal $20,000 of François’ money—but he isn’t afraid to use lethal violence to get it back, and unless Lou finds a way to bring the criminal to justice, Tom and Molly are doomed. Muchnik’s prose is spare and stylized, with clipped sentences replicating his characters’ urgent inner lives: “Why not. That was what got Tom running Oxy to Rozzie”—the Boston neighborhood of Roslindale—"and coming back with scads of cash. Why not. Putting himself on the line for five hundred bucks a run twice a week.” The story moves along nicely and makes good use of its urban Massachusetts setting. There are some fun bit players, such as Trey Jackson, a former college quarterback from Cape Cod–turned–drug dealer. Unfortunately, Muchnik doesn’t take the time to build much suspense, nor does he give the reader much reason to care about who lives or who dies. He certainly could have expanded the tale to do so—the novel has fewer than 150 pages—but as it stands, the novel sprints by leaving without leaving much of an impression.

A brisk but underdeveloped Boston-set thriller.