Redheaded Reviews: Red Glove: Book Two in the Curse Trilogy by Holly Black

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Red Glove: Book Two in the Curse Trilogy by Holly Black

This series just keeps getting better and better. Cassel and his mother spend the summer grifting in Atlantic City, until a con goes wrong and they have to leave. Its now Cassel's senior year at school and the girl he loves, Lila Zachorov, the mob boss's daughter, is going there too, which is a torture to him. His roommate, Sam, and his girlfriend, and worker's rights advocate, Daneca, is too. Cassel is still acting as a bookie, trying to pretend that everything that happened last year was an all true nightmare.

Then Cassel is approached by two government agents, who inform him that his older brother, Phillip, has been shot dead, by what appears to be a woman wearing red gloves. Phillip was going to give them information on the mysterious deaths that he made Cassel do, in exchange for being put into witness protection with his missing wife and son. Cassel eventually agrees to find the Phillip's killer, who could be anyone: the Zachorov family, his mother (for going to the cops), his brother Barron (who may know more than he has let on about his falsified memories).

But the feds are not the only ones interested in Cassel working for them, the Zachorov's want him too, as do his mother and brother. When he figures out who killed Phillip, he realizes he must cover it up and find a way to keep Barron from telling the feds that he is the one who killed all those people. On top of this, New Jersey is voting on whether or not to make testing for working abilities mandatory, which would destroy a lot of lives. And his mother is up to something so dangerous, the blowback, may do more harm to workers than anything else.

As you watch Cassel jump from one fire to the next, trying not to get burnt and come out of this alive, you really feel for him who is in a very dangerous situation, that even a con man as good as he is, may not be able to escape from. This is an excellent trilogy really worth reading. It easily grabs you into its clutches and will not let go. I am only sorry that there is only one more book to read from this world.

Quotes

I’m useless in classes the next day. I fail a quiz in physics and conjugate my verbs completely weirdly in French. Luckily, I probably won’t need French in my future assassination career, unless I’m one of those fancy movie assassins who travel the world and also steal jewels. Physics I might need—got to calculate the trajectory of bullets somehow.

--Holly Black (Red Glove p 91)

Changing is what people do when they have no options left.

--Holly Black (Red Glove p 146)

I thought that I could never betray my family, never work someone I loved, never kill anyone, never be like Phillip, but I get more like him every day. Life’s full of opportunities to make crappy decisions that feel good. And after the first one, the rest get a whole lot easier.

--Holly Black (Red Glove p 253)

Lies work when they’re simple. They usually work a lot better that the truth ever does. The truth is messy. It’s raw and uncomfortable. You can’t blame people for preferring lies.

--Holly Black (Red Glove p 268)

No troubles ever got fixed late at night. Midnight is for regrets.

--Holly Black (Red Glove p 303)