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Joey Coyle was down and out — the affable, boyish South Philadelphian hadn't found dock work in months, he was living with his ailing mother, and he was fighting a drug habit and what seemed like a lifetime of bouncing into and out of bad luck. One morning, while cruising the streets just blocks from his home, fate took a turn worthy of Hollywood when he spotted a curious yellow tub he thought might make a good toolbox. It contained $1.2 million in unmarked bills — casino money that had just fallen off the back of an armored truck.
Detective Pat Laurenzi, with the help of the FBI, was working around the clock to track it down, Joey Coyle, meanwhile, was off on a bungling, swashbuckling misadventure, sharing his windfall with everyone from his girlfriend to total strangers to the two neighborhood kids who drove him past it. To hide the money, Joey turned to the local mob bos — a shadowy, fearsome man who may or may not have helped launder it. But as adrenaline-filled nights began taking their toll, Joey Coyle's dream-come-true evolved into a nightmare: Whom could he trust?
By one of our most evocative and versatile chroniclers of American life, Finders Keepers is not only a gripping true life thriller, it is the remarkable tale of an ordinary man faced with an extraordinary dilemma, and the fascinating reactions — from complicity to concern to betrayal — of the friends, family, and neighbors to whom he turns.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
October 1, 2002 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780743547031
- File size: 127210 KB
- Duration: 04:25:01
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Unemployed longshoreman Joey Coyle thought the yellow tub lying in the road might work as a toolbox. Inside he found 1.2 million dollars--stacks of hundreds in cellophane. BLACK HAWK DOWN author Mark Bowden is justly revered for transforming interviews and research into a story that rolls out before you in the here and now. His own vivid, intelligent voice deepens the verisimilitude of this story. He knows the text. He knew Joey. The 1986 series in the PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER SUNDAY MAGAZINE around which this book was built also sparked a movie titled MONEY FOR NOTHING, starring John Cusack. Seem like a happy ending to you? Check again. B.H.C. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine -
August 5, 2002
Bowden follows two bestsellers (Black Hawk Down; Killing Pablo) with a tragicomic tale based on a series of articles he wrote for the Philadelphia Inquirer,
where he was a reporter for two decades. Joey Coyle, at 28, is down and out, amiable but aimless, an unemployed longshoreman from South Philly who, despite his cheerful exterior, has a gnawing sense of inadequacy that he masks with methamphetamine. In February 1981, Joey has a spectacularly lucky—or spectacularly unlucky, as Bowden shows with the tale's unfolding—day: driving with a couple of guys from the neighborhood, he finds two sacks containing $1.2 million in cash. Despite major media attention on the money's disappearance from an armored car, Coyle decides to keep it. What ensues is partly a police procedural (will the cops find Joey?), but the drama, as Bowden relates the story, lies mainly in Coyle's rapid, drug-mediated deterioration into panic and paranoia as he attempts to launder and stash the money. Bowden's narrative is succinct and fast-moving, spare but complete, and ends in a farcical trial, in which Coyle tries an insanity defense, followed by Hollywood's muddled attempt to turn the story into a feel-good movie starring John Cusack. The tale has a sad conclusion, as Coyle's attempt to live up to his new role as a kind of urban hero fails. This is a smaller tale than Bowden's earlier ones, but a satisfying one, smartly told. (Oct.)Forecast:As Bowden writes, who doesn't dream of finding $1 million? This should have wide appeal, aided by Bowden's reputation.
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