[Welcome to the EL Book Introductions series. These posts are all short (<180 words) introductions/reviews of books in the EL library. They focus on telling you what we think will be interesting for you, a college student and English learner, so use them to help you find the right book for you. You can also use the tags to find books about topics you might be interested in.]
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Do you like crime drama movies, like Heat, The Godfather, or Goodfellas? Or heist movies like Oceans 11 or, well, Heist? Then you might like Coward, the story of Leo, a criminal involved in a plan to steal a big truckload of diamonds. But when they put their complicated plan into action, things go wrong: guns fire, people get hurt, and Leo escapes – not with a briefcase full of diamonds, but one stuffed with cocaine.
Although the first half of the story is about “bad people” committing crimes, the heart of the story is in the second half, when Leo is hiding on a farm with Greta, who was badly hurt in the robbery, and his elderly father, a compulsive thief suffering from dementia.
My two cents: The plot is about crime, but the story of the relationship between Leo, his father, and Greta is at times heartbreaking.
