A decent, pulpy, noir little book about a getaway driver named Eddie. The book starts with Eddie as a youngster stealing cars and driving them around until the police catch up to him. He gets sent to various youth facilities and then finally to the pen after a heist goes pretty wrong. While at the pen he meets up with a charismatic criminal named J.C. and ends up working for him when he is finally released. Hijinks ensue.The Getaway Man was a very fast read and was certainly a page turner. The protagonist was about the only character in the book with any development at all. Even so, he seemed almost a caricature. Eddie is very slow on the uptake. He is really good with cars and not very good with other people or really anything else. None of the other characters have much in the way of development.
The biggest problem I had with the book was the simplicity of the writing. I understand the book was written from the POV of a simpleton (Eddie) however I didn't find the prose to be engaging or to have much nuance.
On the other hand, The Getaway Man was a page turner and, again, a very fast read. I will read something else from Vachss in the future, probably in the near future. I didn't feel like I wasted my time reading this book, I had just hoped for more from an author I had heard much about.
*************Here there be spoilers****************************************************************
In the end, Eddie is very easily and obviously manipulated by the standard noir femme fatale in the standard noir fashion and comes to the standard noir end (probably, the book ends without stating explicitly what happens to Eddie). The end can be seen coming from about three quarters of the way through the book or so. It is so obvious, I have to believe Vachss intends it to be so. I can see where this type of approach might have some appeal but it just didn't work for me in this case.