while reading:
Hard to believe such a 'short' book can be taking so LONG to read! Having a hard time holding my attention, Who knows in this case, it probably would have helped starting at book, but the person who loaned this to me assured me it was also a 'standalone' story.
The President in this one is kind of a jerk, Be interesting to see if his character gets redeemed by the The Outlaws's ending,
There are continual spots where somebody's thoughts go on for several lines/paragraphs, I cannot decide it if is different enough that I am not used to it or the author is trying to be clever and display that cleverness in how the internal monologue is expressed.
It comes across as pretty selfarrogant and not really that clever, in my opinion,
Holy cow, this book took a long time to read! And it's not even as long as other books I have read!
The gist is this: the Russians end up having the remnants of a nasty plague of some sorts called CongoX from a previous novel and use it to try and blackmail the United States into some concessions.
The newlysworn President hates the hero and his band of merry men from the previous novels and decides to turn the leader/hero/rebel/retiree over to the Russians.
Hijinks ensue as the lessthencapable government leaders travel all over the world trying to find the hero whilst the hero is once again saving the United States of America and believing he is looking good doing it.
The 'good guys' are laughing in the faces of the buffoonish 'bad guys' incompetent government leaders/officials as the 'bad guys' continually make foolish mistakes, In the end, some government officials turn sides, so to speak, and assist Castillo and his band of merry men in saving the country, Once these men turn sides, they move from being completely pathetic, inconsequential, moronic, stupid, incompetent imbeciles to incredible smart men capable of doing their jobs in the most efficient manner possible.
Amazing how much of a difference changing sides can make!
The book focuses mainly on Central and South America as well as portions of DC, There are sidebars i. e. descriptions of back history for parts of Germany, Africa, and, . somewhere else I forget where, It is amazing how many family members this guy, Castillo the leader of the merry men, has scattered around the globe, He and his Russian lover both, for that matter, The President is an arrogant jerk and any other term you'd like to fill in the when describing him, He gets to eat crow mixed with humble pie in the end,
The book starts off slow, So very slow. Incredibly slow. I have read math textbooks that were more interesting than this The Outlaws's beginnings, Then, about halfway through the book, I reached the point where I wanted to see how it ended up, I should have saved myself the effort and just read the last chapter, That would have summed it up nicely for me and saved me about a week's worth of reading, A. Book. That. Was. Glacially. Slow.
I will be honest, toward the end there were portions I actually enjoyed, But they were few and far inbetween,
I became so sick and tired of the internal monologues, They were not cute they were not clever, They were stupid and annoying, Maybe if they had been shorter, like a line or two instead of several paragraphs even if they were 'short' paragraphs, It was old after the second or third time it happened, It was ridiculous.
The dialogue throughout the book was irritating, It felt as if the author was saying 'look how clever I am!' in reference to whatever was being written, The bad guys were COMPLETELY incompetent, I do not even know why there were any villains in this novel they served no useful purpose whatsoever save to show how 'clever' the 'good guys' were, I guess.
After the second chapter I was tired of it, Unfortunately for me, unless the book is hideously horrible I will slog through most of what I read in hopes that it eventually redeems itself, This one did redeem itself somewhat in places by the time I finished it, but that was not until the end,
How would I describe the writing Hmmmmm, Selfcongratulatory Selfabsorbed Arrogant Egotistical Full of oneself Conceited How many more words can I come up with Maybe I will find a thesaurus, I cannot adequately describe it, but I really despised much of the writing in this book, Not quite as bad as 'a confederacy of dunces' but pretty close, Perhaps if I had read the other novels before this one I would have a deeper appreciation for what was written, but after this one I have absolutely no desire to read any more novels written by this pair ever again.
So what did I like Hmmmmmm, I loved reading about the topsecret Russian plane, That was pretty cool. The description of this vehicle was so well done it even made me look it up to see if the plane actually existed jury's still out on that one just because I couldn't find anything doesn't meant it DOESN'T exist I may not be looking in the right places.
I did find a pic of a Russian plane that matched how my mind's eye pictured it, but the pic was of a different plane,
I thought the method by which the Army scientists determined CongoX could be destroyed was rather interesting, That part of the story was rather clever, because most of the time the means by which a disease plague/virus/whatever is eradicated goes in a different direction.
I think it is funny how the picture on the cover of the book has absolutely nothing to do with the content of the storyline itself, This is most definitely a case of not judging a book by its cover,
In closing, yes, I gave it two, despite my harsh opinion of the book, I did not completely hate or despise the book I did not completely dislike the book,
Read the book at your own risk,
Charlie Castillo's secret unit has been disbandedbut that doesn't mean he's out of business, As experience has painfully shown him, there are many things the intelligence community can't do, won't do, or doesn't do well, and he has the men and assets to help set things straight.
But the first opportunity, when it comes, is shocking: A FedEx package arrives, bearing photos of barrels containing some of the most dangerous biohazard materials on earth, all of which were supposed to have been destroyed during a raid on a secret Russian factory in the Congo.
Who has them, and what do they want Castillo has a feeling he's not going to like the answers A lot of this book is a review of the past books, catching up the idiot new President on the activities of the recently deceased potus! Decent book, but doesn't accomplish a lot.
And as usual Charlie is still falling fast for his Russion hottie! I really enjoyed this book, theth in the series, The characters, dialogue and plot, are well developed and very entertaining, First time listening to a W, E. B. Griffin book and wasn't sure I would like it but I ended up liking it, The plot was easy to follow and it took a few turns that kept my interest, It was a bit predictable but in the end the good guys win and I like that the majority of the time, The whole Presidential Agent series took a weird turn in the previous book, "sitelinkBlack Ops", The current book continues the story, chasing a deadly virus that might be released into the water supply, That is the serious part of the story, Charley is his usual smartass self, but the President is an even bigger idiot than he was in the previous book, Apparently he was the VicePresident before the original President in this series suddenly died,
Any problems with this story The characters seem poorly developed and General Naylor acted out of character, Ambassador Montvale was also out of character and in the end, even Secretary of State Cohen seemed utterly out of place,
Any modesty issues Yes, but they are the same as in the previous book, I keep hearing about marriage, but no wedding bells yet,
I enjoyed this book a little bit more than I did the first time I read it, That was probably because I was aware of the problems and ignored them,
No action or suspense until the end, Then it's over like nothing happened, It's all about a group of people with different talents coming together to form a new group to hunt down bad guys and save the world, There must becharacters and twenty agencies which drove me crazy to remember because usually when you introduce a character they either get killed off or move the story along.
probably why all the name dropping, I should have left this one on the clearance pile, Just another reason not to read a twoauthored book, Politics the same in government, academia departments, church committees, administraive offices, everywhere, And good guys do get screwed over, Mind you, they also can be jerks at times, : Ego, ego, ego and very little superego, Sucks. Oh, and some governmental people are incompetent and some evil and some both, Witnessand his administration.
Here inI am pleased that a member of the press is one of the good guys, Since the bad really awful despicable guys happen to be in charge of the senate and the white house,
I swear, if I ever got a dog which I won't I want a Max! Bouvier des Flandres Or an Labradoodle, but really a baby Max,
I dont think WEB Griffin liked women very much,
This book does NOT turn Montvale into a "good guy, " He most certainly isn't. Nor did it endear Naylor Sr, to me, in spite of his history, given his willingness to sacrifice a good/great guy, His son has potential. Too bad the series crashed and burned before we could see that or see if that was the case, . I listened to this on CD while commiting,CDs! I only gave itbecause it was too much talk and not enough action, The story, except for aboutchapters, was mostly told characters describing what happened in previous chapters, Very annoying way to stall the plot, and disappointing because there was a good farfetched story there about the Russians using a secret bioweapon to blackmail the U, S. into returning a pair of Russian spies/defectors, Farfetched in that why would the Russians risk WWto get backdefectors, no matter how highly placed, esp, when the defectors aren't even cooperating with the U, S. Government The real heart of the plot developed in the lastCDs in which members of the military and intel agencies have to decide if they will be loyal to the Prez, who is an ahole, or loyal to their friends/do what's right for the country.
That was the real conflict in the story and it only gotout ofCDs' treatment, That's why thestars. Hope the next book in the series picks up the tempo and the writers do away with the talk summaries, Message to the Butterworths: We don't have Alzheimers and can remember what happened earlier in the book! Where to begin on review of yet another story that would have been advisable to listen to the abridged version on audio CD Let's begin at the beginning with a change in narrator that was noticable with the first sentence.
this was definitely NOT Dick Hill, who narrated the firststories in the Presidential Agent series, Then Mr Jonathan Davis, who picked up narration duties here, apparently did not validate name pronunciation on the previous stories as there were two names pronounced entirely different, and one character who he couldn't come to a decision on how to pronounce the name, so it came outdifferent ways! Enough about the narrator as I looked ahead to storyandto see that the author and publisher came to their senses and brought back Mr Dick Hill YEAH!! On to the storywhich is Presidential Agent.
This book was onaudio CDs and quite honestly the Presidential Agent aka Charlie Castillo was noticably absent in aboutof the story, I would say the lastdisks were where Castillo was present all of the time, Way too much fluff, with a poor narrator, would normally lead to aout ofstar rating on the Goodreads scale however, one of the main antagonists in the firststories has a major change in attitude and comes through in the end.
He knocked another character in this story down a few pegs which was well deserved and brought a smile to my face at the conclusion of this "adventure", raising my rating toout ofout ofon Goodreads scale.
UPDATE Upon further researching this title, there are apparentlyversions on Audio CD, so if you are interested in listening, be sure to get the Dick Hill version! If the story weren't so long, I may listen again to Dick's narration to see if I feel it is better! Charlie Castillo's secret unit has been disbandedbut that doesn't mean he's out of business.
As experience has painfully shown him, there are many things the intelligence community can't do, won't do, or doesn't do well, and he has the men and assets to help set things straight.
The Butterworths often get the titles wrong, In about half of this book they refer to someone as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, In fact, the title is Director of Central Intelligence, Period. And there is no need to spell out Russian titles we can't understand anyway, Why not call someone a lieutenant colonel instead of the full Russian title On top of that, there's the incorrect use of German titles this happened in earlier books, too.
Once you have called someone Johann von und zu Brandenburg, you don't have to repeat it all, Brandenburg is enough. But if you are paid by the word
The ever popular Lt Col retired Castillo is back, a petulant, spoiled baby who in real life would have often suffered the indignity of being beaten up by his peers for being a jerk, and with some good coaching might have survived a brief tour in the military.
Lt. Col retired Castillo is the protagonist, while the newly elected President is his nemesis and is one of the many antagonists, The President is also a petulant child who in behavior is so similar to Lt Col retired Castillo that you wonder how either of them made it of Middle School alive
In general the characters are all like this, of course deferring to Lt Col retired Castillo for some unknown reason.
Perhaps he has elaborate hissy fits when he is with them and they can't bear to upset him Perhaps they are afraid of exposure on "Wolf News" yes ladies and gentlemen Wolf News, the fount of wisdom amongst a sea of Liberal news entities.
Mr Griffin has our characters commit treason, well because they can, they know best, One tiny bright light in this, he does not use Muslim Terrorists as the villains, the villains are Spoiler the dreaded Russians!
Also, does Griffin have some sort of contract with his publisher that he has to provide a summary of the entire book series to date, in each successive book For crying out loud, the first half of the book is a drive down memory lane, summarizing the entire book series to date!! I suppose the publisher feels that if Griffin does this, each book can sell on its own and won't require a reader to start with the opening book in the series thus more copies of the latest book sell Whatever the reason, it really is quite frustrating.
This is not a thick book to begin with, and half of the book is a summary of all the other books, The actual plot and storyline of this book doesn't even kick in until the midpoint, I noticed in the previous two books Griffin included A LOT of storyline and character review, and this book takes it to a new level, Griffin isn't writing anymore, Butterworth is, . . and half of his writing is nothing more than the cliff notes version of all the other books, . . yawn, yawn, yawn .
Third, I wanted to comment briefly on character development, What is Butterworth doing If you want to take me into a suspended state of disbelief, . . coax me in with convincing characters! Pevsner is supposed to be some sort of quasiroyal, iconic, powerful, ruthless figure! Why does everyone on Castillo's team clown him like he's a walking dart board Sure, friends poke at each other.
. . I get that. It's part of the machismo camaraderie thing, Fine. But Butterworth spends so much time mocking Pevsner in this book that the reader loses all respect for the powerful ruthless nature that is supposed to be his persona.
Instead, he's just another loser with some money who can't stand up for himself, . . it makes the story much less convincing, Sorry .
Hard to believe such a 'short' book can be taking so LONG to read! Having a hard time holding my attention, Who knows in this case, it probably would have helped starting at book, but the person who loaned this to me assured me it was also a 'standalone' story.
The President in this one is kind of a jerk, Be interesting to see if his character gets redeemed by the The Outlaws's ending,
There are continual spots where somebody's thoughts go on for several lines/paragraphs, I cannot decide it if is different enough that I am not used to it or the author is trying to be clever and display that cleverness in how the internal monologue is expressed.
It comes across as pretty selfarrogant and not really that clever, in my opinion,
Holy cow, this book took a long time to read! And it's not even as long as other books I have read!
The gist is this: the Russians end up having the remnants of a nasty plague of some sorts called CongoX from a previous novel and use it to try and blackmail the United States into some concessions.
The newlysworn President hates the hero and his band of merry men from the previous novels and decides to turn the leader/hero/rebel/retiree over to the Russians.
Hijinks ensue as the lessthencapable government leaders travel all over the world trying to find the hero whilst the hero is once again saving the United States of America and believing he is looking good doing it.
The 'good guys' are laughing in the faces of the buffoonish 'bad guys' incompetent government leaders/officials as the 'bad guys' continually make foolish mistakes, In the end, some government officials turn sides, so to speak, and assist Castillo and his band of merry men in saving the country, Once these men turn sides, they move from being completely pathetic, inconsequential, moronic, stupid, incompetent imbeciles to incredible smart men capable of doing their jobs in the most efficient manner possible.
Amazing how much of a difference changing sides can make!
The book focuses mainly on Central and South America as well as portions of DC, There are sidebars i. e. descriptions of back history for parts of Germany, Africa, and, . somewhere else I forget where, It is amazing how many family members this guy, Castillo the leader of the merry men, has scattered around the globe, He and his Russian lover both, for that matter, The President is an arrogant jerk and any other term you'd like to fill in the when describing him, He gets to eat crow mixed with humble pie in the end,
The book starts off slow, So very slow. Incredibly slow. I have read math textbooks that were more interesting than this The Outlaws's beginnings, Then, about halfway through the book, I reached the point where I wanted to see how it ended up, I should have saved myself the effort and just read the last chapter, That would have summed it up nicely for me and saved me about a week's worth of reading, A. Book. That. Was. Glacially. Slow.
I will be honest, toward the end there were portions I actually enjoyed, But they were few and far inbetween,
I became so sick and tired of the internal monologues, They were not cute they were not clever, They were stupid and annoying, Maybe if they had been shorter, like a line or two instead of several paragraphs even if they were 'short' paragraphs, It was old after the second or third time it happened, It was ridiculous.
The dialogue throughout the book was irritating, It felt as if the author was saying 'look how clever I am!' in reference to whatever was being written, The bad guys were COMPLETELY incompetent, I do not even know why there were any villains in this novel they served no useful purpose whatsoever save to show how 'clever' the 'good guys' were, I guess.
After the second chapter I was tired of it, Unfortunately for me, unless the book is hideously horrible I will slog through most of what I read in hopes that it eventually redeems itself, This one did redeem itself somewhat in places by the time I finished it, but that was not until the end,
How would I describe the writing Hmmmmm, Selfcongratulatory Selfabsorbed Arrogant Egotistical Full of oneself Conceited How many more words can I come up with Maybe I will find a thesaurus, I cannot adequately describe it, but I really despised much of the writing in this book, Not quite as bad as 'a confederacy of dunces' but pretty close, Perhaps if I had read the other novels before this one I would have a deeper appreciation for what was written, but after this one I have absolutely no desire to read any more novels written by this pair ever again.
So what did I like Hmmmmmm, I loved reading about the topsecret Russian plane, That was pretty cool. The description of this vehicle was so well done it even made me look it up to see if the plane actually existed jury's still out on that one just because I couldn't find anything doesn't meant it DOESN'T exist I may not be looking in the right places.
I did find a pic of a Russian plane that matched how my mind's eye pictured it, but the pic was of a different plane,
I thought the method by which the Army scientists determined CongoX could be destroyed was rather interesting, That part of the story was rather clever, because most of the time the means by which a disease plague/virus/whatever is eradicated goes in a different direction.
I think it is funny how the picture on the cover of the book has absolutely nothing to do with the content of the storyline itself, This is most definitely a case of not judging a book by its cover,
In closing, yes, I gave it two, despite my harsh opinion of the book, I did not completely hate or despise the book I did not completely dislike the book,
Read the book at your own risk,
Charlie Castillo's secret unit has been disbandedbut that doesn't mean he's out of business, As experience has painfully shown him, there are many things the intelligence community can't do, won't do, or doesn't do well, and he has the men and assets to help set things straight.
But the first opportunity, when it comes, is shocking: A FedEx package arrives, bearing photos of barrels containing some of the most dangerous biohazard materials on earth, all of which were supposed to have been destroyed during a raid on a secret Russian factory in the Congo.
Who has them, and what do they want Castillo has a feeling he's not going to like the answers A lot of this book is a review of the past books, catching up the idiot new President on the activities of the recently deceased potus! Decent book, but doesn't accomplish a lot.
And as usual Charlie is still falling fast for his Russion hottie! I really enjoyed this book, theth in the series, The characters, dialogue and plot, are well developed and very entertaining, First time listening to a W, E. B. Griffin book and wasn't sure I would like it but I ended up liking it, The plot was easy to follow and it took a few turns that kept my interest, It was a bit predictable but in the end the good guys win and I like that the majority of the time, The whole Presidential Agent series took a weird turn in the previous book, "sitelinkBlack Ops", The current book continues the story, chasing a deadly virus that might be released into the water supply, That is the serious part of the story, Charley is his usual smartass self, but the President is an even bigger idiot than he was in the previous book, Apparently he was the VicePresident before the original President in this series suddenly died,
Any problems with this story The characters seem poorly developed and General Naylor acted out of character, Ambassador Montvale was also out of character and in the end, even Secretary of State Cohen seemed utterly out of place,
Any modesty issues Yes, but they are the same as in the previous book, I keep hearing about marriage, but no wedding bells yet,
I enjoyed this book a little bit more than I did the first time I read it, That was probably because I was aware of the problems and ignored them,
No action or suspense until the end, Then it's over like nothing happened, It's all about a group of people with different talents coming together to form a new group to hunt down bad guys and save the world, There must becharacters and twenty agencies which drove me crazy to remember because usually when you introduce a character they either get killed off or move the story along.
probably why all the name dropping, I should have left this one on the clearance pile, Just another reason not to read a twoauthored book, Politics the same in government, academia departments, church committees, administraive offices, everywhere, And good guys do get screwed over, Mind you, they also can be jerks at times, : Ego, ego, ego and very little superego, Sucks. Oh, and some governmental people are incompetent and some evil and some both, Witnessand his administration.
Here inI am pleased that a member of the press is one of the good guys, Since the bad really awful despicable guys happen to be in charge of the senate and the white house,
I swear, if I ever got a dog which I won't I want a Max! Bouvier des Flandres Or an Labradoodle, but really a baby Max,
I dont think WEB Griffin liked women very much,
This book does NOT turn Montvale into a "good guy, " He most certainly isn't. Nor did it endear Naylor Sr, to me, in spite of his history, given his willingness to sacrifice a good/great guy, His son has potential. Too bad the series crashed and burned before we could see that or see if that was the case, . I listened to this on CD while commiting,CDs! I only gave itbecause it was too much talk and not enough action, The story, except for aboutchapters, was mostly told characters describing what happened in previous chapters, Very annoying way to stall the plot, and disappointing because there was a good farfetched story there about the Russians using a secret bioweapon to blackmail the U, S. into returning a pair of Russian spies/defectors, Farfetched in that why would the Russians risk WWto get backdefectors, no matter how highly placed, esp, when the defectors aren't even cooperating with the U, S. Government The real heart of the plot developed in the lastCDs in which members of the military and intel agencies have to decide if they will be loyal to the Prez, who is an ahole, or loyal to their friends/do what's right for the country.
That was the real conflict in the story and it only gotout ofCDs' treatment, That's why thestars. Hope the next book in the series picks up the tempo and the writers do away with the talk summaries, Message to the Butterworths: We don't have Alzheimers and can remember what happened earlier in the book! Where to begin on review of yet another story that would have been advisable to listen to the abridged version on audio CD Let's begin at the beginning with a change in narrator that was noticable with the first sentence.
this was definitely NOT Dick Hill, who narrated the firststories in the Presidential Agent series, Then Mr Jonathan Davis, who picked up narration duties here, apparently did not validate name pronunciation on the previous stories as there were two names pronounced entirely different, and one character who he couldn't come to a decision on how to pronounce the name, so it came outdifferent ways! Enough about the narrator as I looked ahead to storyandto see that the author and publisher came to their senses and brought back Mr Dick Hill YEAH!! On to the storywhich is Presidential Agent.
This book was onaudio CDs and quite honestly the Presidential Agent aka Charlie Castillo was noticably absent in aboutof the story, I would say the lastdisks were where Castillo was present all of the time, Way too much fluff, with a poor narrator, would normally lead to aout ofstar rating on the Goodreads scale however, one of the main antagonists in the firststories has a major change in attitude and comes through in the end.
He knocked another character in this story down a few pegs which was well deserved and brought a smile to my face at the conclusion of this "adventure", raising my rating toout ofout ofon Goodreads scale.
UPDATE Upon further researching this title, there are apparentlyversions on Audio CD, so if you are interested in listening, be sure to get the Dick Hill version! If the story weren't so long, I may listen again to Dick's narration to see if I feel it is better! Charlie Castillo's secret unit has been disbandedbut that doesn't mean he's out of business.
As experience has painfully shown him, there are many things the intelligence community can't do, won't do, or doesn't do well, and he has the men and assets to help set things straight.
But the first opportunity, when it comes, is shocking: A FedEx package arrives, bearing photos of barrels containing some of the most dangerous biohazard materials on earth, all of which were supposed to have been destroyed during a raid on a secret Russian factory in the Congo.
Who has them, and what do they want Castillo has a feeling he's not going to like the answers,
The Butterworths often get the titles wrong, In about half of this book they refer to someone as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, In fact, the title is Director of Central Intelligence, Period. And there is no need to spell out Russian titles we can't understand anyway, Why not call someone a lieutenant colonel instead of the full Russian title On top of that, there's the incorrect use of German titles this happened in earlier books, too.
Once you have called someone Johann von und zu Brandenburg, you don't have to repeat it all, Brandenburg is enough. But if you are paid by the word
The ever popular Lt Col retired Castillo is back, a petulant, spoiled baby who in real life would have often suffered the indignity of being beaten up by his peers for being a jerk, and with some good coaching might have survived a brief tour in the military.
Lt. Col retired Castillo is the protagonist, while the newly elected President is his nemesis and is one of the many antagonists, The President is also a petulant child who in behavior is so similar to Lt Col retired Castillo that you wonder how either of them made it of Middle School alive
In general the characters are all like this, of course deferring to Lt Col retired Castillo for some unknown reason.
Perhaps he has elaborate hissy fits when he is with them and they can't bear to upset him Perhaps they are afraid of exposure on "Wolf News" yes ladies and gentlemen Wolf News, the fount of wisdom amongst a sea of Liberal news entities.
Mr Griffin has our characters commit treason, well because they can, they know best, One tiny bright light in this, he does not use Muslim Terrorists as the villains, the villains are Spoiler the dreaded Russians!
Also, does Griffin have some sort of contract with his publisher that he has to provide a summary of the entire book series to date, in each successive book For crying out loud, the first half of the book is a drive down memory lane, summarizing the entire book series to date!! I suppose the publisher feels that if Griffin does this, each book can sell on its own and won't require a reader to start with the opening book in the series thus more copies of the latest book sell Whatever the reason, it really is quite frustrating.
This is not a thick book to begin with, and half of the book is a summary of all the other books, The actual plot and storyline of this book doesn't even kick in until the midpoint, I noticed in the previous two books Griffin included A LOT of storyline and character review, and this book takes it to a new level, Griffin isn't writing anymore, Butterworth is, . . and half of his writing is nothing more than the cliff notes version of all the other books, . . yawn, yawn, yawn .
Third, I wanted to comment briefly on character development, What is Butterworth doing If you want to take me into a suspended state of disbelief, . . coax me in with convincing characters! Pevsner is supposed to be some sort of quasiroyal, iconic, powerful, ruthless figure! Why does everyone on Castillo's team clown him like he's a walking dart board Sure, friends poke at each other.
. . I get that. It's part of the machismo camaraderie thing, Fine. But Butterworth spends so much time mocking Pevsner in this book that the reader loses all respect for the powerful ruthless nature that is supposed to be his persona.
Instead, he's just another loser with some money who can't stand up for himself, . . it makes the story much less convincing, Sorry .