Read as part of CBR17 Bingo: red cover
And so I now come full circle to Patrick Hoffman’s catalog.
Hoffman is a quality over quantity writer. Every 3-4 years, we are gifted with a new book of his that functions as a soup-to-nuts examination of how criminal justice works in America. A massive drug shipment in Every Man a Menace. Corporate espionage in Clean Hands. The war against white supremacists in Friends Helping Friends, which came out this year and is one of the best things I’ve read in 2025.
Here we’re back at the beginning with a bank robbery in The White Van. And what you get is the signs of a writer who would slowly perfect his style book-by-book. For a first novel, this hums with energy and it’s told effectively the way a Patrick Hoffman novel is. I loved Emily; she might be my favorite Hoffman character ever. Thrust in the same situation Hoffman always puts his life loser characters in, she navigates it with drugs, danger, and daring.
This might have worked to being my favorite Hoffman novel but the other characters weren’t as strong as his other novels, aside from Beryl. I couldn’t connect with the cop stories or what Hoffman was trying to say through them. And I felt like the ending was a bit too tidy, given the slam bang endings he’s had in other books.
But it’s a first novel and by that standard, it’s excellent. It shows the promise of what a great writer he would become. I really wish he was more prolific.