Buy Back    by Brian Wiprud Order:  USA  Can Minotaur, 2010 (2010) Hardcover, e-Book     Reviewed by Mary Ann Smyth Tommy Davin is an insurance investigator whose specialty is retrieving stolen paintings. All well and good. But when he is forced to pay an ex-girlfriend's debts to a loan shark and needs cash quickly, he decides to first have artwork stolen and then to be paid for the retrieval. Good scheme. Illegal, of course, but loan sharks won't listen to that argument. When the selected pieces are stolen, Davin is told by the men he hired to take them that the paintings were stolen from the original thieves! How's that for irony? What to do now? Loan sharks aren't known for their understanding attitudes. $15,000 by next Wednesday or the figure goes to $25,000 along with a probable kneecapping. To top off his bad day, people who stand next to him seem to be dropping dead. Of gunshots from a sniper's bullets. What's with this? Is he really the target and the sniper missed or are the killings a warning to him? Rather drastic. A phone call would accomplish the same thing. Davin is a man beset by many things that mean trouble. Such as his relationships with women – he never seems to pick the right one. His list of friends would probably be found on any police blotter. He tries to stay on the straight and narrow but circumstances don't always allow that. Brian Wiprud has many books to his name. All of them good reading. Buy Back can easily slide into the list. Lee Child cited Wiprud as 'the funniest tough-guy writer there is.' Humor is hard to maintain in a book and Wiprud does it effortlessly while still building suspense and committing bloody murders. T. Jefferson Parker maintains that Buy Back is Wiprud’s best and biggest novel yet – his breakout book. With all these accolades, you must read Buy Back. I know you'll agree. Note: Opinions expressed in reviews and articles on this site are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of BookLoons. Find more Mystery books on our Shelves or in our book Reviews