Dizzy City

by Nicholas Griffin

Book Overview

The year is 1916, Europe is at war, and American industrialists are getting rich. Englishman Benedict Cramb deserts the trench warfare of northern France and stows away on an outbound transatlantic... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1586421328
• ISBN13: 9781586421328
• Release Date: August 2007
• Publisher: Steerforth Press
• Length: 371 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.4" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Flimflammers in the Big Apple during WWI

Nicholas Griffin writes a cagey, twisty page-turner about a wounded British soldier, Ben Cramb, who deserts in 1916. He stows away on a freighter that ends up in New York City and soon beefs up his rudimentary grifting skills under the tutelage of one Julius McAteer. The two artfully "rope" a fellow by the name of Henry Jergins, and soon the reader is swept into a dexterous web of deceit, retribution, and wartime munitions intrigue. In succession, shell-shocked Ben, flamboyant dresser Henry, a beautiful stage actress called Katherine Howells, and then Ben again, relate the stings in progress. As they do, they each also clue us into their colorful pasts. DIZZY CITY builds several times to the climax and then recedes backward in time with another character's perspective. This technique both spurs the reader and induces a trace of irritation at the manipulating delay. When the denouement, based on an actual act of sabotage, finally takes center stage, it does so under the guise of Ben's post-traumatic, dreamy/nightmarish, spluttering perception. Readers will have to decide for themselves whether this is great atmospheric writing or more confusing than it ought to be. Some twists in the story can be guessed beforehand, but all in all, Griffin presents a historical novel that grips the reader not only for its creative cons and war conscience; but for the rogues it brings to life and for the unsentimental, yet sympathetic, love stories they fabricate...only to discover intimations of the real thing. [4.5 stars]

Great book

Great historical fiction book based on World War I time con-men in NYC. A very fun read that is well written.

Dizzy with Delight

This is a top notch novel, and Griffin, like a fine wine that Ben Cramb might use to seduce a mark, gets better and better as the years go by. As in all his books, the characterisations are fantastically strong but in Dizzy City you really sense that a huge amount of thought has got into each plot twist and turn. You will want to take your time reading Dizzy City. It's worth savouring every page, as it's that good. Let's hope that we don't have another four years to wait for Griffin's next effort. It's too much to expect him to bang out a book of this quality every nine months a la Lee Child,Stuart Woods or Tomas Otto but there's a shortage of historical novelists with his range and talent.

'The Sting' meets 'All Quiet on the Western Front'

Just because Griffin's latest is set in New York City doesn't mean it doesn't have war on its mind. Most of the fiction I've read set during the First World War locates itself directly in the trenches, but Griffin is looking at different aspects of the war. He takes a deserter, puts him down in Manhattan and then looks at the world of arms dealers and high society earners through the lens of a low-down gang of semi-sophisticated con artists. I say semi-sophisticated because every time you think one of them is up to something sharp, the plot will turn and you'll figure out there's a more aggressive shark swimming close by. Old-fashioned, enjoyable, page-turning story-telling, a meeting of `The Sting' and `All Quiet on the Western Front', this is a fast and absorbing read. The characters - especially Ben Cramb, unforgettably intense and compelling - combine with the exciting plot and exotic locale to provide the best New York historical fiction for decades - more literary than "Billy Bathgate", more exciting than "The Alienist".

Cunning

A shifting plot is common enough in the world of con games, but what makes Dizzy City stand apart is both the structure and the characters. First, this is a real entertainer of a book. You keep one eye on one character, only to find you've been looking in the wrong direction and then it twists again. But Griffin succeeds in letting you get to know the three different narrators: a war veteran and deserter who's so damaged he doesn't even know it, a con man with a twenty year old grudge, and a woman who may or may not be playing every man in the book. They're all involved with one another in 1916 New York and we get to travel with them through the grubby Bowery, Coney Island and into fancy hotel rooms and summer houses where they go scouting for the wealth that they're all after. But this being a twisty book, the war that the central character has escaped, has a funny way of never quite letting him go. It's a pacy, intriguing story and as a frequent NY visitor, I got a kick out of reconsidering the city I thought I knew.