Hidden within Stingy Jack is a fair story, a tale of gluttony, theft and above all, greed. The title character is shadowy, a man damned by his lust for ale and good living, none of it financed by honest means. But Jack's story lies within a bigger one. Two master thieves plan a huge haul, the last job that will allow them to retire — if they can carry it off. They're in town, they've cased the joint, and then one of them meets Jack...

My main problem with Stingy Jack is that I think it is unbearably unrealistic. I am happy to suspend disbelief — that's what fiction is about, after all — but this book just asks too much of the reader's sense of plausibility. The characters are stereotypes who act in ways never seen in real life. The dialogue is unnatural in many places. There are fallacies and contradictions. And to top it all, the language in which the book is written is convoluted and overly wordy. Bearing all this in mind, I found that Stingy Jack came across as an immature attempt at a novel. Perhaps some sophisticated writing could polish up the story, but for now it's my opinion that any glitter remains well buried in the rough.

Stingy Jack is available from Booklocker and Amazon.