LEVERAGE: THE CON JOB by Matt Forbeck

Nathan Ford and his team of good-doing thieves, last seen on the TV series Leverage, come to the aid of aging comic book artist Simon Curtiss when forger Lorenzo Patronus, looking to make a splash at San Diego Comic-Con, cheats Curtiss of his life's work.

This is the first of three Leverage tie-in novels to date. I'm interested as a fan of the show from the beginning, but also, as a writer, I wanted to see how the show's style translated to novels. The show relied on quick cuts, flashbacks, and our heroes constantly talking with each other through earpieces. Matt Forbeck's chapters are short to keep the pace up, each one holding to one hero's view of the action for the most part. It works well, and Forbeck shows knowledge of each character's backstory and their dynamics with each other. Forbeck does not employ the show's quick flashbacks, which were effective for TV, but in a novel might have slowed the pace or disrupted the narrative.

Each of the three novels is written by a different author, which also attracted me to the books. Paging through the second, I see Keith R.A. DeCandido does use jumps in chronology (Now, An Hour Ago, Last Week...). In the right hands, the technique can work.