Shrinkage - Chuck Dixon

Jeff is a shoplifter working the department stores of downtown Philadelphia in the 1970s. Slick. Professional. Smart. He believes he’s all of the above. He thinks he’s found the perfect angle when he gets an inside job at the city's premiere retail palace over the Christmas season. He's the fox in the hen house until he draws the wrong kind of attention to himself. Suddenly Jeff's world is out of control and everything, and everyone, he cares about is drawn into a web of deceit and danger that even he doesn't have the street smarts to escape from.

I've really enjoyed all of Chuck Dixon's action/adventure novels that I've read. SHRINKAGE is a bit of a departure for him, a noirish crime novel that races along and does the difficult job of making us root for an unsympathetic protagonist. It captures the 1970s setting very well, too. I was really impressed by this one. It's the best Chuck Dixon novel I've read so far and one of the best books I've read this year. Highly recommended.