Smoke Kings by Jahmal Mayfield

 

Finally DNFed a book, which given some of my recent reads is saying something. It's a crime novel that hinges on the mains (or at least one set of them) making bad decisions, then making bad decisions on top of those in a death spiral. I'm not in a place to dig that, and I'm really not in a place to dig that happening at a fucking snail's pace, in thudding slow prose, with so many POV characters it's nigh-impossible to keep them straight (there are at least seven). Also a slow-motion flashback in-between some of the chapters adding literally nothing to the story. Took like almost half of the 380+ pages for the murder to happen, it didn't look as though the pace was going to accelerate, I bailed.