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This novel is difficult to categorize, and that's actually one of the many things that I enjoyed about it. By that, I mean to say that it's a dystopic novel, an action novel, a story of a dictatorship, which could also be described as a 'mob' novel, not unlike 'The Godfather,' but it's also a love story, featuring both male/female relationships (good and bad) and male/male relationships (platonic and sexual). It's also very well written, keeping me simultaneously wanting to read faster to see what would happen next and wanting to make this story and these characters last.

For those readers who prefer recommendations such as "if you like author A, you should definitely read books by... More > author B, since they write in the same style/genre," I would be hard-pressed to choose just one, but I think I would point to David Benioff's 'City of Thieves' or 'The 25th Hour' as being similar. He and Ms. Morse are both extremely adept at taking characters that another author would use as villains and not only turning them into anti-heroes and even heroes, but making their readers come to care about them and even love them.

'The Bedlam Boys' are the title heroes of this dystopian novel, a group of henchmen who work for the dictator (named Annaman Jones) of Mount Riley, Oregon. His second in command is Nikkolaus Beck, the face of the dictatorship, one of the two *stars* of this book. (I won't say who the other star is, and leave it for other readers to decide for themselves.) When you first meet Nikki and then see him in comparison with two very important people who come into his life soon after, it might be hard to think of him as what you think of as a hero. But stay with it, and follow Nikki when he takes you along on the jobs he is assigned by his boss. You might just be surprised where your heart leads you. < Less

Looks great and has gotten great reviews, enough to make me truly want to read it - but seriously, this price is ridiculous. I'm willing to pay to read (rather than pirating), but not $25 for an unknown quantity paperback, regardless of length or of the author's costs (a lower price might mean less profit, but definitely more buyers). If an author isn't going to offer the book in an ebook format, then price the print version reasonably - as in $15 or less; I'm quite sure the $25 is an enormous deterrent to other readers than me. As it is, I'll pass until I can find a used copy, borrow one from someone else, or until there's an electronic version; if none of those comes to pass, I'll be sad, but I'll have live without reading it. Whereas for $10 less (or for an electronic version), the author would have had at least one, and probably many many more, certain buyers (and more to the point, perhaps, readers).