Really struggled with this. Found the writing to be awful and the names of the characters kept making me feel like it was a farce. Overall though there’s nothing redeemable about Peyton so as a reader I didn’t care what happened to him at all with all of his bad choices.

*Deadbeat* by Adam Hamdy is a high-octane, pulse-pounding thriller that grabs you by the collar and doesn’t let go. From the first page, Hamdy thrusts readers into a heart-stopping game of cat and mouse, filled with suspense, twists, and shocking revelations that will keep you up long into the night. This is a thriller that delivers on every level—gripping action, complex characters, and a plot so tight it will leave you breathless.

The story follows a protagonist who’s caught in a web of intrigue and danger, trying to uncover the truth while being hunted by a relentless force. The stakes couldn’t be higher, and Hamdy expertly ratchets up the tension with every chapter, pulling you deeper into a dark and unpredictable world where no one can be trusted, and danger lurks at every turn. The pacing is relentless—every page feels like a countdown to the next twist, and just when you think you’ve figured it out, Hamdy hits you with another shocking turn.

What really sets *Deadbeat* apart is Hamdy’s ability to blend emotional depth with breakneck action. The characters are complex and flawed, making them feel real and relatable even as they navigate life-or-death situations. The tension between the protagonist’s personal struggles and the external threats they face creates a compelling narrative that will have you on the edge of your seat.

The writing is sharp, immersive, and cinematic, making the action sequences vivid and intense. Whether it’s a chase scene through the city streets or a quiet moment of introspection, Hamdy’s prose pulls you into the heart of the story and never lets you go. The sense of urgency is palpable, and each twist is more mind-bending than the last. *Deadbeat* is the kind of book that will leave you questioning everything you thought you knew and keeps you guessing until the very end.

If you’re a fan of thrillers that pack a punch with non-stop action, deep psychological tension, and jaw-dropping twists, *Deadbeat* is an absolute must-read. Adam Hamdy has crafted a masterpiece of suspense that will leave you breathless and craving more. Prepare for a wild ride you won’t soon forget.

Published by ‎ Atria Books on December 3, 2024

Crime and Punishment remains the greatest story about a murderer’s guilt. Adam Hamdy is no Dostoevsky, but Deadbeat takes an entertaining if over-the-top look at how guilt affects the life of a serial killer who learns that he might not have been murdering for a good cause.

Peyton Collard was a military engineer. He left the military for a civilian job so he could build a stable family. Unfortunately, he celebrated the job with too much alcohol, drove drunk, and killed nineteen-year-old Freya Prisco in a traffic accident. Collard went to prison for manslaughter, his wife left him, and he’s done nothing but accumulate debt since his release. Not to mention that Freya occasionally scolds him for killing her.

Prison taught Collard to take a beating, but that seems to be his only life skill. Having not learned much of a lesson from his manslaughter vacation, Collard tries to drown his guilt with nightly drinking at a bar with Jim Steadman, another ex-con. As protagonists go, Collard is more self-destructive than most. Readers might nevertheless sympathize with him because he has the good grace to feel guilty. Unfortunately, he so often tells us about his guilt that I got tired of hearing it. Dostoevsky let the reader see how guilt was consuming Raskolnikov; Collard can’t stop narrating his guilty thoughts.

A small bundle of cash turns up in Collard’s mailbox with the address of a website. A recorded message on the website promises to pay Collard a lot more money if he murders a nightclub owner who is dealing drugs and generally being a bad guy.

“Would you kill a bad person if doing so would make the world a better place for someone you love?” A murder that improves the world is still murder, but Collard asks and answers the question from the perspective of desperation rather than morality. Desperate men, Collard believes, don’t have “the luxury of moral certainty.” Dismissing morality as a disposable luxury seems to be a widely held opinion in today’s America. That’s a topic a book club could discuss in the unlikely event its members choose to read Deadbeat.

Collard sets morality aside and commits the murder. He’s paid but is quickly beaten and robbed by thugs who were drinking in his favorite bar. He commits a second murder to recoup his loss, then a third to pay for a nice place where he can hide from the thugs while impressing his daughter. His benefactor tells him that the second victim launders money for the mob and his third is a priest who diddles children.

As is the vigilante way, Collard tells himself that his killings are righteous. The ghosts of his victims disagree. Unsurprisingly, Collard learns that the ghosts might have a legitimate beef with him. The realization that his victims might not have been as evil as he thought compounds his growing guilt.

Collard is something of a dolt for not realizing he’s being played, but he’s a desperate dolt and the line between desperation and greed is thin. He becomes a baffled dolt when the bodies of his victims are mutilated in the morgue, postmortem crimes he didn’t commit but that inspire the media to refer to the serial killer as the West Coast Ripper. He’s an even bigger dolt for not understanding that he will be blackmailed into continuing his murder spree by the person who financed it. Can people really be this stupid? Sure they can, but I found it hard to believe that Collard would not have thought this through before committing the first murder. The guy is an engineer, after all.

This setup establishes the mysteries that must be resolved before the story concludes. Who paid Collard to commit the murders? What ties the victims together? Why are the bodies of his victims being mutilated postmortem? How do the thugs track him to his new home and why are they certain that he has hidden bundles of cash?

I found it hard to warm up to Collard — he’s self-pitying and, well, he’s a serial killer — despite his frequent and sincere proclamations of love for his daughter, whose need for a supportive father supposedly motivates Collard’s crime spree. My favorite character is a clichéd hooker with a heart of gold who gives Collard comfort when no one else will. Her refusal to judge Collard (she carries guilt of her own for an act of self-defense) might support a book club discussion about the evil of judging others, but I’m not sure that general rule applies to serial killers.

The hooker joins Collard in bemoaning life’s unfairness; to her, fairness is “just a comforting lie that’s designed to stop people tearing each other apart with the unfairness of it all.” She also offers a form of absolution when she assures Collard that what he did “makes sense when seen through the lens of your life,” a perspective that “means you’re not a monster, because monsters walk alone.” I’m not sure the hooker makes these points credibly, but I give Hamdy credit for taking a chance with his effort to create a sympathetic serial killer.

Two unimaginative action scenes turn Collard into a Reacher-like superhero near the novel’s end. I suppose Hamdy couldn’t come up with anything better to achieve his desired outcome, but Collard’s sudden proficiency in armed combat was one of several plot twists that I didn’t buy. The answer to the novel’s biggest question — what connects the people Collard is instructed to kill — is clever but preposterous.

Identifying the person who pays Collard scads of money to commit the murders isn’t difficult (there aren’t a lot of wealthy characters), but the criminal scheme is a ridiculously complicated way to achieve the villain’s end. The bad guy’s plan requires Collard to behave repeatedly in exactly the way that the villain predicts. The scheme is so unlikely to succeed that nobody with any sense would implement it — but then, if the villain had any sense, we wouldn’t have a plot, would we?

The artificially joyous ending is a gift to readers who insist on happy endings. Whether the protagonist deserves a happy ending is debatable, although forgiving readers who have sympathy for Collard might be pleased. Readers who think forgiveness should be accompanied by justice might be disappointed, although everyone has a different concept of justice, so it’s difficult to say whether readers will be satisfied with the outcome. I’m recommending the story because it entertains, not because I found it credible or was drawn to its muddled message.

RECOMMENDED

A gritty thriller about how far a man will go for his family. This read like an action movie. I didn't have strong feelings.

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!