Review: Highly entertaining slice of Beatlemania
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 13, 2013
Being a Beatles fan for more years than I care to remember, I was drawn to the basic premise of this book. It's February 1964 and the Fab Four are about to arrive in America. Ahead of them their first appearance on US TV as stars of the Ed Sullivan show, to an expected audience of 70 million.Meanwhile having been caught and jailed  for robbing a bank twenty-five years before, a group of aged criminals make plans to rob the same bank on their release from jail. With seventy million Americans glued to their television screens, what better time to pull off a bank heist?Of course, as Robert Burns once wrote; `the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley'.As Sonny Carter reassembles his old gang, he is offered inside help in the shape of the beautiful Sarah, an employee of Eddie Bishop, manager of The Hudson bank, and the man who betrayed Sonny and his gang all those years ago. Meanwhile, of course, where there's money the Mob is usually never far away.The scene is therefore set for a hugely enjoyable tale of love, loyalty, treachery, double dealing and downright chicanery. With an action driven plot, characterisation often takes second place, but I thought some of the characters here were well drawn and very believable. My favourite was Provenzano the mob boss whose command of English gave Dan McNeil the chance to show that he can also write comedy with the best of them.And the Beatles? I expected their inclusion in this book to be no more than window dressing. In fact we meet the boys on several occasions, where they are not only characters in their own right, but become an intrinsic part of the plot. If you want to know more, well you'll just have to invest in a copy of Cant Buy Me Love yourself, won't you? It really is money well spent.In short, this is an excellent book which is not only a thoroughly entertaining and enjoyable read, but one that deserves to take its place in the library of literature inspired by the Beatles.