This book is a fast-paced, tension-filled ride, and I couldn’t put it down. Hamdy masterfully weaves a story of guilt, revenge, and self-discovery. The twists and turns were unexpected and kept me on edge, making it a thrilling read from start to finish.

If you enjoy psychological thrillers with flawed, complex characters and a dark edge, Deadbeat is an excellent choice. It’s gripping, well-written, and packed with suspense, making it hard to put down. 3.5 stars rounded to 4.

One of the best books I’ve ever read. It had all the elements of a great read. I was shocked, humored, upset, and melancholy, all at the same time!!

Five stars ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

I gave this one a good effort and read the first 30% and then decided to DNF -- I wasn't engaged with the story and found Peyton to be so stressful. Every one of his choices made me anxious and I decided this wasn't a story I wanted to spend time with right now.

I am sure this book would work for lots of readers, but it did not work for me.

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book!

“Other folk can beat you physically, mentally even—trust me, I know—but you’re the only person who can harm your soul, down at the very core of you, deep where you’re bound to a world beyond the physical.”

Peyton Collard was a good man once. Divorced, drunk, and severely damaged, Peyton is offered a life-changing sum of money to kill an evil man. As he goes on a vigilante journey that leaves a trail of bodies across California, Peyton wonders about the identity of his anonymous patron. Soon he embarks on a tense and potentially deadly investigation to discover the truth about the murders he’s committed.

This was a solid murder mystery that I easily stayed invested in. The twist at the end shocked me twofold because I was shocked at the WHO but also I wasn’t expecting there to be a twist at all. Peyton had me rolling my eyes multiple times throughout the story at the ridiculousness of his antics and there are a few wtf moments…but I found myself rooting for him anyway.

“What dreams would you trade for the life of a bad man? Because that’s what money is…Dollar bills are dream tokens…Money is the key.”

Thank you to Netgalley, Atria Books, and the author for the ARC in exchange for my honest thoughts.

It's been a while since I've read an adrenaline thriller, and Deadbeat was adequately fast-paced and thrilling. However, it is weighed down by frustrating depictions of women—which I am realizing is very common in this subgenre—and a relentlessly stupid protagonist who is both incredibly selfish yet somehow convinced he is the most selfless person in the world.

Peyton has lost everything to the mistakes of his past, and is hyper-fixated on the implications his alcohol addiction and subsequent incarceration make on his present day existence. A divorced single-dad, he is unable to bring in enough money to avoid becoming a deadbeat or avoid getting wrapped up in issues that land him in jail. After being released, he screws up again and his life very quickly tailspins out of control when he receives an envelope of money in the mail with the request that he kill someone in order to receive a larger sum of money. In a shockingly short amount of time, Peyton becomes a serial killer, convinced that the people he is killing are cancers on society that must be eliminated…because the people who are paying him told him so? And he's messy too! He buys a luxury car—albeit used—and a huge home like that wouldn't be suspicious? He was very…not smart.

Peyton is gullible and arguably the worst person to ever use a search engine in the world. He would not fare well on Facebook or places where people pass random things off as fact and it never occurs to them to dig deeper and research more. If this had been written by Hamdy to provide social commentary on the desperation of people who have no other options I would have been more accepting of its execution—but Deadbeat doesn't quite make it there.

His ex wife is hot (it's mentioned a lot), angry, and eventually able to suspend belief that this man she's known to be unreliable and a screw up is suddenly able to provide her huge sums of money in a short amount of time. Peyton eventually gets mixed up with a sex worker who exists for no other reason than to be his pillow therapist and enable his bad decisions. I hated how women were written in this book so badly, there's even a scene where Peyton talks about his ex-wife's body and immediately follows it with a line about how his teenage daughter has the same body. Ew!

Overall this was a very fast read, and it was entertaining. However, it required a lot of suspension of belief, and the ending just gets outright messy.

3 ⭐️s

Thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for providing an ARC!

Wow. To say reading a book questioning the ethics of vigilante justice is timely would be an understatement. This novel was jam packed with action. The chapters are short and keep your attention the entire way through. I never would have guessed the reveal in a million years, but it makes so much sense and flows so effortlessly. I loved the way this was written as a book within a book type deal. The ending will definitely bring up some ethical questions, as does the whole book, so I love it for that. On the surface this is a speed train paced crime story, but underneath that thin veil it is so much more.

In search of redemption he has instead sold his soul.

Peyton Collard is no longer the stand-up man he once was…solid career, wife, daughter, he had it all. Then the accident happened and everything has forever changed. Divorced, drunk pretty much around the clock, and making one bad decision after another, Peyton’s downward spiral seemed impossible to stop. Then he received an offer that was hard to resist, a huge sum of money in return for a single act. The catch? That act was murder, the targeted killing of a bad person. Could he regain control of his own life by taking that of another person? More to the point, should he? That one act led to more of the same until it finally hit him just how wrong his actions were, and then he set out to get justice for his victims. Through bad luck or bad choices, Peyton may have gone too far to ever claim redemption.
Peyton is not a terribly likable protagonist, someone whose bad choices are continually multiplying and for which he doesn’t take responsibility. It took me a while to get some traction on the story, but a clever twist at the end helped redeem matters. Having read others’ reviews, I suspect that how much one likes the book relies on (a) how much the reader can accept the self-serving actions of a shady protagonist and (b) whether the point of view from which the story is told clicks with the reader. I am not usually a fan of first person storytelling, and that created a bit of a barrier for me to enjoying the tale….but that is a personal quirk that is not universally shared. Readers of authors like Don Winslow and John Connelly (who gave this novel a nice blurb) might find this up their aisle. I would rate it overall a 3.5, rounding up to 4 stars….its a good read, just not one that meshed with my preferred type of book. My thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for allowing me early access to a copy of Deadbeat.

"Regrets aren’t excuses. They are an expression of the torment a mind suffers after perpetrating a wrong."

"My name is Peyton Collard and I am a killer." From the first line Deadbeat, by contemplative thriller author Adam Hamdy, is an adrenaline fueled first person tale of a man who makes consciously bad choices that lead to even worse consequences; and yet you can't help hoping he finds a way out of his tormented life.

Peyton was an upstanding man. Former military, adapting to civilian life with his high school sweetheart, now his wife, and a beautiful daughter. He throws it all away getting into a car after too many drinks.

Now out of prison for involuntary manslaughter he's on probation, divorced, jobless, and a drunk. He knows he's a deadbeat.

After another bad decision he's back in jail until an anonymous benefactor bails him out with one condition. They send him an envelope with $10,000 in it, promising $100,000 more if he kills a drug dealer. The money will help him get caught up on his child support and back in his ex-wife's good graces. Is it wrong to rid the world of a bad person? But when his benefactor keeps sending more money with more names, Peyton is haunted by those whose lives he took, including the one when he chose to drive drunk.

Combined with the writer's brutal gritty fast paced storytelling, and the captivating haunting rawness of voice actor Chris Henry Coffey, this contemporary stream of conscious novel keeps your heart racing; and while Peyton's quest to discover his questionable benefactor leads to a thrilling twist, it left me questioning if Peyton's the hero or deadbeat villain of his own story.

I received a free copy of this book/audiobook from the publishers via #NetGalley for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.

This book was wild, but also so addictive and I didn't want to put it down. The MC was absolutely awful and pathetic and somehow enthralling. The way nothing gets him down and even when he has hit rock bottom he keeps going and you just can't look away. He had an amazing way of spinning everything to convince himself of whatever he needed to do what he was going to do, and to show how awful humanity is at the same time. I was compelled to see what happened to him and uncover the secrets and I LOVED the ending. This was an addicting read.

Thank you to the publisher for a free ARC and audiobook copy.

I have to say I really enjoyed Deadbeat by Adam Hamdy. His style and use of short chapters just makes gives the story a feeling of momentum. Of course I suppose the storyline itself does that as well, lol. Is it possible for one incident to radically alter a man’s life? Peyton Collard would certainly say yes. He had a great life…and then he didn’t. Peyton’s life has become a train wreck…or perhaps I should say a car wreck, and now he’s a severely damaged man. Then he gets an offer that could help him put his life back in order but it’s almost too good to be true. And as with all such offers, it’s never as easy as it sounds. I mean, all he has to do is kill someone, and an evil man at that. Given what he’s already been through, would it really be so hard? As I said, it’s never that easy, and things snowball. I have to say Peyton is quite the interesting character and the storyline definitely took some wild turns I wasn’t expecting. As long as you’re willing to suspend your disbelief, you’re likely to have a good time with this one. Thanks so much to the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me the chance to read an ARC of Deadbeat.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/deadbeat-adam-hamdy/1144787617?ean=9781668031520&bvnotificationId=c5ab6609-b34e-11ef-a6a6-0e759ae4126b&bvmessageType=REVIEW_APPROVED&bvrecipientDomain=gmail.com#review/326636890

Thank you for the opportunity to preview Deadbeat. This was unexpected and I really enjoyed the ride. A happily married man’s life is turned upside down when he is sent to jail for manslaughter.
Now Peyton lives in a run down house and drinks his life away. He had a good life and now he barely has a life. But that’s about to change and someone wants to help him and is willing to give him money. A lot of money and all he has to do is commit a murder. But Peyton gets caught up in what is soon to be a nightmare. Wow I was caught up with this very fast paced novel. Now some of it was a bit unbelievable but hey it’s fiction. 4 stars for me!

Peyton Collard is a deadbeat, a man on a steep decline. He spends his time deep in a bottle and completely lost. In his hungover stupor, he causes himself to get arrested and placed behind bars. When an anonymous source bails him out, his world is flipped upside. Peyton receives an envelope in his mailbox offering a large sum of money in exchange for him killing someone. As Peyton struggles to survive he begins to see the light at the end of the tunnel. What could the extra money offer him, his daughter, and her future. As the sums of money escalate, Peyton begins to question his motives, is he doing the right thing?

Peyton is an extremely unlikable and untrustworthy narrator. He gets himself in deep trouble. The story is fast paced, but does strongly center of murder, alcohol, and drugs. So warning for those triggered by that. This style of story isn't my favorite, but overall I read through it quickly. Thank you Netgalley and Atria for the physical copy of this book.

I was excited to read the lastest from Adam Hamdy, as I recently read his previous title this year.

This one had a very different set up. but was still just as twisty as his prior read. I would say that it doesn't do anything extra special or jaw dropping, but it was a good time. I tandem read and listened, which worked well for me. I enjoyed the narration.

If you liked his last novel, I would recommend to you. If you didn't I don't think that you will like this one.

Thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for my early e-arc.

Although this book was very thrilling and kept me on the edge of my seat, I just couldn't get on board with Peyton. I'm not sure if he was supposed to be so unlikeable for the story, but for me, I couldn't get past it and it made me hesitant to pick the book back up and continue reading and ultimately ruined the experience of reading it.

Thank you to Atria Books and Simon Audio for the #gifted copies to review.

Adam Hamdy has moved to the auto read list with two reads of his that I have loved now. Deadbeat was an interesting ride that captivated me from the start. Peyton is a single father trying to put his life back together after a horrific car accident, and he is offered a large sum of money to kill an evil man. This begins his vigilante journey to try and figure out who hired him, but he also has to come to terms with the fact that he completed these requests.

I was riveted by this, what with Peyton’s struggles with needing money, the justification of doing what he’s doing, and how he is going to get out of this mess, it all kept me flipping pages to get to the end. I loved the audio also, and I thought listening and reading along with the physical copy was a great way to read this book. The pacing was fast all the way through, overall I absolutely loved this one and definitely recommend it.

On paper, this thriller sounded like something I’d like. In execution, not so much.

It was a very quick paced book and I did really enjoy that aspect of it- I finished it in a day and a half!

I mostly just found I didn’t like the MC. While that isn’t always a dealbreaker for me in a book, it felt more annoying in this book as there weren’t a lot of other characters and I wasn’t very invested in the plot. I just found it hard to be invested when this guy was a total hot mess who made mistake after mistake while also murdering people. The end was so completely out there as well. I can’t say I saw it coming but it seemed a bit much.

I did think the writing was good, there was a strong sense of voice and it didn’t feel stilted.

This book just wasn’t for me, hopefully it will be for you!

Raw, gripping, and morally complex, Deadbeat is a pulse-pounding dive into one man's dark descent—and his desperate quest for redemption.

Peyton Collard is far from a hero: broken, drunk, and clinging to the wreckage of his life. But when he’s offered a fortune to kill a man deemed evil, his reluctant “yes” sets off a chain of blood-soaked events across California. The deeper Peyton dives into his vigilante spree, the more questions he has about his faceless employer—and the truth behind the lives he’s taken.

Adam Hamdy delivers a dark thriller with gritty realism and unrelenting tension, forcing readers to grapple with questions of morality, revenge, and redemption. If you love morally ambiguous antiheroes and nail-biting suspense, this one’s for you.

⭐ Rating: 5/5
💡 Perfect for fans of: Dark thrillers, vigilante justice stories, and antiheroes with layers.

This book honestly surprised the heck out of me. It started off with a confession of murder and then continued on a little slowly at first. There was enough going on to keep me intrigued though. About midway through the book, I couldn’t put it down! I read through most of my workday because I HAD to know how it would end. Thanks to NetGalley for an eARC and thanks to Atria for a physical copy in exchange for an honest review. I have not read Adam Hamdy before, but I most definitely will be now!

How often have you read a book with a character that couldn't get out their own way? Peyton Collard is that guy. He is a full-blown alcoholic - not even a functional alcoholic - just a drunk. Everytime he wakes up cover in his own sick, he promises to himself that he will change and be better. But he can't do it. One beer or drink turns into twelve and next thing you know he's waking up in a doorway. Over half the book is an endless cycle of drunk-to-promise-to-drunk. And oh yeah - he starts killing people for money. The last fifty pages there's finally some redemption as the author reveals what's going on. It's kind of a wild twist. Is there redemption? No spoilers. Be prepared to be inside the head of an addict for a while with this one.

An interesting read for sure. The story was of greed but also what would you do to protect your family? A man has already tainted his own soul so why not go further to be able to provide for your daughter instead of being a “deadbeat”. While also on a quest to find out who is forcing this life on him. It was a comical story and the audio version was good.