CHINAMAN'S CHANCE by Ross Thomas

Ross Thomas is one of the masters of crime fiction that sometimes gets overlooked when readers are discussing their favorite authors. After his death in 1995 some of his books went out of print, but now they have been republished in trade paperback format. If you haven't read Thomas, pick up Chinaman's Chance, one of the smartest, smoothest reads there is, a book so finely crafted it bears reading twice.

Chinaman's Chance features Artie Wu and his partner Quincy Durant, not quite rogues but definitely con artists. They share a history in the spy game that has given the pair their own moral compass that never seems to waver (even though it confounds everyone around them). You'll wish you were as smart as these characters, and even the supporting cast is fully three-dimensional and perfectly drawn.

Ross Thomas created a space that was classic but contemporary, somewhere between Ross MacDonald and The Sting. Read this book and mark my words: you'll be recommending it to someone else before you've even reached the last page.