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Hustle
Hustle
Aug 17, 2025 4:42 PM

Author:Will Ferguson

Hustle

Nineteen-year old Jack McGreary is adrift of the faded boomtown of Paradise Flats. Raised by his eccentric and increasingly erratic father, Jack has learned to live by his wits. When a pair of fast-talking swindlers named Virgil and Miss Rose blow through town, Jack falls in with them and together they go on a crime spree across the American Southwest, staging a series of elaborate and hilarious cons and heists. Young Jack is swept along into the world of hot jazz and cold, calculating crimes of the heart as the sexual tension between him and Miss Rose comes to the boil. Someone is being set up. But who is playing who?

Reviews

Brilliantly entertaining

—— The Times

A terrifically enjoyable second novel...lyrical and hilarious, bleak and funny, with a love of history balanced against a rippingly clever plot

—— Daily Telegraph

Beautifully and vividly described... the depiction of the era and the place seem spot on... This is a terrific novel - complex but fun, philosophical but sharp, perceptive but ambiguous...you're happy just to be along for the thrilling ride

—— Sunday Herald

Ferguson's comic picaresque is a delight

—— Financial Times

Ferguson fills his pages with fascinating historical detail and lovingly described cons. His lengthy descriptions of scams are enthralling, funny and perhaps even educational

—— Guardian

The novel makes no pretence of providing unambiguous answers, but takes us on a beguiling, questing journey

—— Nick Rennison , Sunday Times

Murray Bail marshals the tensions between his characters and their ideas to great effect

—— Peter Scott , The Telegraph

A gratifyingly dry wit pervades this novel of ideas

—— Chris Ross , The Guardian

Truly gripping

—— Big Issue

Opening with a mysterious yet distressing anecdote about a girl driving dangerously, Peter Ferry's first novel immediately captures the reader's imagination, drawing you into a story filled with humour, tenderness and suspense... The novel is as entertaining as it is intriguing and is not to be missed

—— Aesthetica

A very neat piece of storytelling

—— William Leith , Evening Standard

A neat piece of storytelling

—— Johanna Thomas-Corr , Scotsman

A lovely and heartbreaking book . . . Julia Glass writes the sort of novels you wish would go on forever; such is your immediate attachment to her impeccably drawn characters . . . [she] offers up intimate examinations of the lives on complex people, recognizable for their insecurities and strengths, failings and successes, humor and sadness, loves and loves lost.

—— Miami Herald

An arresting story that is both thorny and complex ... A wonderful novelist will expose truths that elude us in the everyday. [Glass's] eye in I See You Everywhere takes in blind spots and makes them mesmerizing

—— New York Daily News

Julia Glass is a writer firmly in control

—— Dallas Morning News

Glass elegantly captures what it means to be an independent and spirited contemporary woman

—— Chicago Tribune

Beautifully written

—— Image Magazine

It is expertly written in its way, and oddly compelling - like a slushy movie you can't help but respond to

—— Guardian

Moving and thoughtful ... Poignant and compelling, this lyrical novel lifts the veil on an internal world of love, rivalry and misunderstanding; an intricate depiction of sibling relationships

—— Good Book Guide

A beautifully evocative and intelligent novel

—— Woman & Home

This impassioned tale is a gripping read

—— James Smart , The Guardian

Jones is fabulous...offering titbits of danger and discord, yet keeping a cool matter-of-fact tone for the big horrors

—— Sunday Times

Her second novel is a must-read; a devastating, brilliant account of what happens when everything a man believes in...begins to crumble

—— Cath Kidson Magazine

Full of danger and discord

—— Sunday Times Summer Reading
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