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This story is not only an interesting crime thriller but also a human drama of one man known as “The Moth.” The way that the author tells the story of this man, whose real name is Frank, goes by the year (not counting the first chapter in 2010) from 1955 to 2015. Each chapter examines Frank’s life and how he became a pawnbroker with his morals always in question. His life is sometimes sad, such as in his sketchy relationship with his parents, especially his mother, and sometimes iconically funny.
As Frank ages, he becomes not only a pawnbroker but a “respectable office worker,” police informant, and hustler, who always seems to find himself helping the worst of the worst in a dangerous East Los Angeles. Not surprisingly, life isn’t easy for the main character. One section of the book explains how Frank fits in with the lowest of society in Los Angeles, which makes him good at sinking into anonymity. The reader is repeatedly told how Frank is nothing special. Instead, he is an everyman, a feature that makes him relatable to the book's audience.
The author, who seemed to be inspired by film noirs, has crafted a character right from those classic films. Burt Lancaster in The Killers, a down-on-his-luck character who can’t ever really catch a break or hide from his past, is an example of this. The author develops Frank’s character extremely well, although the other characters are not fleshed-out to this extent. The author does a good job of creating suitable antagonists in Frank’s life, like the terrifying Bruno “AX” Gutierrez. Ultimately, this is a fine novel about a man on the fringe of society.