Outsourced
""“Reservoir Geeks”" "
Synopsis:
Dan, Shrini, Joel and Gordon are all unemployed software engineers who lost their jobs due to outsourcing. They have no job prospects and no income, but they do have a plan. They are going to protect their middle-class lives by using their computer skills to execute a daring robbery of a bank.
However not even Dan, the systems analyst, can foresee all the eventualities, especially since they have involved two different Mafia groups.
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Review:
Dan is the lead character in this bunch of middle age misfits who all want to take part in the heist for varying reasons. Dan is a family man on the verge of bankruptcy; Shrini wants a large payday before returning to India for an arranged marriage so he can set up a good business there. Joel just wants more money and sex-obsessed Gordon wants enough money to buy a wife over the internet. The unlikely band of blaggers end up hunted by detective Alex Resnick and Petrenko the Russian mobster. Other key characters are Dan's wife Carol, the odious bank manager Craig Brown and local Mafioso boss Raymond Lombardo. Having to deceive his wife gives Dan a massive guilt trip as he knows he stands to lose her and his two children if she gets wind of what he is up to. The reader gets embroiled in his turmoil as he fights to keep the plan together and on track whilst juggling a home life as well. Resnick also has emotional turmoil and this is handled with a very sensitive touch by the author. The prose is blunt and to the point with few flowery phrases. Instead it says what it needs to, and then moves on to the next topic. The whole plot of the book is very well scripted and the ingenious plan concocted by Dan and Shrini will give any bankers who read this nightmares. As ever though plans that look good on paper rarely work so well when executed and the maelstrom of events which the robbery sets into action are both hilarious and dramatic. If I was asked to use two words to describe Outsourced they would have to be “Reservoir Geeks”. Zeltserman himself is aware of the similarities and even goes so far as to doff his cap to Tarantino's film. All in all I found Outsourced a thoroughly enjoyable novel which enthralled me.