Crooks - A Novel About Crime and Family

From award-winning author Lou Berney comes an electrifying new novel that follows a uniquely American crime family on an unforgettable journey across four decades. You''ve never met a family like the Mercurios. They say the American dream is going farther in life than your parents ever did. But how does that work if your parents are criminals? For Buddy , a low-level mob wise guy, and Lillian , a charming pickpocket, the criminal underworld is the only life they''ve ever known. When they''re forced to flee the glittering Babylon of Las Vegas, they end up opening a club in Oklahoma City--a town that quickly feels like a gold mine of fresh marks and easy new money. Along for the ride are their five children, all of them raised into the family business of crime--until the day comes when they each have a chance to make their own way in the world, even if they can never completely escape the family''s long, dark shadow. Jeremy, the family''s Golden Boy, will throw himself into the glittering excesses of a drug-fueled Hollywood in the roaring 1980s. Tallulah, the daredevil, will find herself in the deadly Wild West of post-communist Moscow. Ray, the dope, the dumb muscle since he was a kid, wants nothing more than to put down his gun, but following orders is all he''s ever known. Alice, the genius who renounced her life of crime long ago, now sees her white-shoe law firm being blackmailed and must tap into old skills to save both the company and her own life. And Piggy, a civilian always on the outside looking in on his crime family, desperate to be part of the gang. Crooks is an epic novel about a truly unforgettable crime family--and their lives across forty years of corruption, each Mercurio living with the weight of a dark legacy that ultimately threatens to destroy the whole family. ...

About the author

Lou Berney is the multiple award–winning author of November Road, The Long and Faraway Gone, Double Barrel Bluff, Dark Ride, as well as Gutshot Straight and Whiplash River. His short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Ploughshares, and the Pushcart Prize anthology. He lives in Oklahoma.

Summary

"Lou Berney's Crooks stands with some of the finest crime novels ever written." — Don Winslow, #1 Internationally bestselling author
"A panoramic, cross-generational look at a unique family pursuing their individual visions of the American dream” --- Joseph Finder, New York Times bestselling author
From award-winning author Lou Berney comes an electrifying new novel that follows a uniquely American crime family on an unforgettable journey across four decades.
You’ve never met a family like the Mercurios.
They say the American dream is going farther in life than your parents ever did. But how does that work if your parents are criminals?
For Buddy, a low-level mob wise guy, and Lillian, a charming pickpocket, the criminal underworld is the only life they’ve ever known. When they’re forced to flee the glittering Babylon of Las Vegas, they end up opening a club in Oklahoma City—a town that quickly feels like a gold mine of fresh marks and easy new money. Along for the ride are their five children, all of them raised into the family business of crime—until the day comes when they each have a chance to make their own way in the world, even if they can never completely escape the family’s long, dark shadow.         
Jeremy, the family’s Golden Boy, will throw himself into the glittering excesses of a drug-fueled Hollywood in the roaring 1980s. 
Tallulah, the daredevil, will find herself in the deadly Wild West of post-communist Moscow.
Ray, the dope, the dumb muscle since he was a kid, wants nothing more than to put down his gun, but following orders is all he’s ever known.  
Alice, the genius who renounced her life of crime long ago, now sees her white-shoe law firm being blackmailed and must tap into old skills to save both the company and her own life.
And Piggy, a civilian always on the outside looking in on his crime family, desperate to be part of the gang.
Crooks is an epic novel about a truly unforgettable family–forty years of peril as each Mercurio has to grapple, in their own way, with the family’s powerful criminal legacy.

Report

"A truly stunning masterpiece of crime fiction. Lou Berney's Crooks stands with some of the finest crime novels ever written which is no surprise since it comes from one of the greatest literary crime novelists in the world. A fascinating family crime cocktail with elements of Goodfellas, Boogie Nights, and The Godfather all brilliantly mixed together in one unforgettable novel." - Don Winslow, #1 Internationally bestselling author
"I love these messy rogues and their incompetent capers, I love the richly disparate settings and pitch-perfect eras, I love the ebb-and-flow pacing and the lightning bolts of humor." - Chris Pavone, New York Times bestselling author of Two Nights in Lisbon
"Crooks is a smart and funny crime novel with a big, big heart. The characters are so easy to love, and Lou Berney's writing is alive with wit and warmth and joy. He's such a gifted stylist and a terrific storyteller. I've read all of his books and this is my new favorite. I would recommend Crooks to just about anyone. Don't miss it!" - Jason Rekulak, New York Times bestselling author of Hidden Pictures
"Darkly funny, wildly stylish, and full of heart, Lou Berney's CROOKS is a tour de force, a decades-spanning epic of the most charming, eccentric family you could hope to meet. Every setting dazzles, every sentence crackles, and every character steals the scene. What a fantastic, voice-driven triumph. I am in awe!" - Angie Kim, New York Times bestselling author of Happiness Falls and Miracle Creek
"[Crooks] somehow manages to be both wildly entertaining and deeply moving...It's a tender, shrewd, and often darkly funny portrait of a family bound by love, lies, and larceny. With his signature warmth and precision, Berney explores what it means to belong-to a country, a family, and a legacy you didn't choose." - Jean Kwok, NYT best-selling author of The Leftover Woman
"Vivid, ingenious, compassionate - a tour de force." - Joseph Finder, New York Times bestselling author of The Oligarch's Daughter
"Dark Ride is Lou Berney at his best. This story...is both thrilling and heartbreaking but ultimately life affirming." - S.A. Cosby, New York Times bestselling author of Razorblade Tears and Blacktop Wasteland
"Stellar... Few readers will finish this unmoved." - Publishers Weekly (starred review) on Dark Ride
"Dark Ride effortlessly grabs you and does not let you go until the final page. I didn't want this book to end and it stayed with me long after I finished reading it. Lou Berney is a magnificent writer with talent to burn." - Don Winslow, New York Times bestselling author of The Cartel and City on Fire
"...a heart-wrenching and twisting path, populated by a richly drawn cast of weird and lovable characters and dangerous scenarios. Dark Ride is moving, deeply involving, funny, breathless, and I loved every single page of Hardly's harrowing journey from stoner to sleuth." - Lisa Unger, New York Times bestselling author of Last Girl Ghosted and Confessions on the 7:45
"Dark Ride is a brilliant book from a master storyteller." - T.J. Newman, New York Times bestselling author of Falling
"A suspense novel shot through with heart and soul, it has the feel of an instant classic." - Steph Cha, bestselling author of Our House Will Pay, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize
"Dark Ride is a wild, funny, intense, charming, brilliantly written thriller that I couldn't have loved more. From page one to the stunning end, I was under its spell." - Lisa Lutz, New York Times bestselling author of The Spellman Files the Passenger
"Dark Ride is quite simply dynamite. Lou Berney lights the fuse on the first page and from there, the suspense builds to an utterly explosive climax." - William Kent Krueger, New York Times bestselling author of The River We Remember
"Lou Berney is such a talent, and he's at the top of his game here. Dark Ride will grab your heart in chapter one and not let go until the final, searing page." - Alafair Burke, New York Times bestselling author of Find Me
"Put your to-be-read pile to the side. A new book from Lou Berney should go to the top of your agenda." - Lori Rader-Day, award-winning author of The Death of Us
"Only Lou Berney could create Hardly, one of the most endearing characters in recent memory." - Air Mail
"Dark Ride proves to be one of the most engaging books of the year." - The Hard Word
"Remarkable.... Lou Berney's artistry as a writer hits you in the heart and tugs hard at your soul." - Don Winslow, New York Times bestselling author, on November Road
"Nothing less than an instant American classic. Haunting, thrilling-and indelible as a scar." - A. J. Finn, #1 New York Times bestselling author, on November Road
"When people say they want to read a really good novel, the kind you just can't put down, this is the kind of book they mean. Exceptional." - Stephen King on November Road
"Wistful and complex, Berney's confident portrait of a roadside America traumatized by Kennedy's death gives the novel literary heft, while the ticking clock of the mob closing in on the family to settle accounts lends a genre bite." - Library Journal (starred review) on November Road
"Pitch-perfect fiction." - Booklist (starred review) on November Road
"I loved [Dark Ride]. If you are a mystery/suspense reader and missed it, go get it." - Stephen King
"Berney is a descendant of Elmore Leonard, but his sensibility and deadpan style are all his own." - Air Mail on Double Barrel Bluff

Product details

• Authors: Lou Berney, Berney Lou
• Publisher: William Morrow
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 09.09.2025
• EAN: 9780063445574
• ISBN: 978-0-06-344557-4
• No. of pages: 384
• Dimensions: 152 mm x 229 mm x 28 mm
• Subjects: Fiction > Suspense; FICTION / Thrillers / Crime, FICTION / Family Life / Siblings, Thriller / suspense fiction, Family life fiction, Later 20th century c 1950 to c 1999, Crime and mystery fiction, FICTION: Thrillers / Suspense, FICTION: Thrillers / Crime, FICTION: Family Life / Siblings, FICTION: Crime, FICTION: Sagas, Saga fiction (family / generational sagas), FICTION: Historical / 20th Century / Post-World War II