The Great Gimmelmans is a robbery thriller, which is a fairly new genre for me. As someone who tends to read thrillers about brutal murder, this was far tamer and therefore it took some time to get myself into it. 

In the prologue, we are introduced to Aaron Gimmelman and his son as they go on a road trip. During the drive, Aaron plays his son the audiobook of his memoir to deter him from acting out and misbehaving. The bulk of the Book is that memoir, which starts out with the stock market crash of the 1980s when Aaron was twelve years old.

Barry Gimmelman, Aaron’s father, is a stock broker in New Jersey when the market crashes. His home gets repossessed and his family heads down to Florida in their RV. Along the way, a plan is devised to make money Robbing Banks as a way to pay back Barry’s bad investments and the money he owes to the mafia. Only, as robbing banks can do, things get out of hand quickly. 

While this is a thriller, I would honestly say that the parts of this book about family dynamics are where it shines. Devotion, betrayal, abuse and sibling love and support in the face of terrible parents are written with painful accuracy. We see Barry and Judith, his wife, try to place blame on their children,, especially Aaron, when it is in fact the result of their bad parenting decisions.. We also get to see Aaron and his older sister, Steph, build an alliance to try to pick up the pieces together once the children realize what has been happening.

This is certainly not my favorite book, or even my favorite thriller of the year, but it was a good read! It did take a long time for me to get myself fully immersed in the story, but once I did I was hooked. If you want your thrillers to grip you right away (which is usually the case for me), this book probably is not for you. 

However, if you want a thriller that tackles loss, grief, faith, betrayal and family, and you’re willing to plow through a lot of exposition, this book really did redeem itself and raised some really interesting topics. I may end up reading more of this author, and I think that contemporaries would probably make his writing shine a lot more because emotions seem to be his wheelhouse. 

Overall, I enjoyed this read and especially the ending. If it at all sounds interesting to you, I recommend picking up a copy on the day of its release, November 14th. 

I received an Advanced Reader’s Copy (ARC) of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. Thank you to Leilani at Spark Point Studio for sending me a physical copy of this book to review!

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