Spinetingler Reviews The Adjustment

"Long-time Phillips readers will recognize Wayne Ogden from his prominent role in The Walkaway and relish the opportunity to spend a whole book with his heartless ass.  Wayne is Phillips’ greatest creation, a character who always gets what he wants through his cunning and balls while never making it look too hard.

Like all Phillips novels, you never know where The Adjustment is going and the storytelling is nothing less than completely compelling.  Phillips makes you yearn to learn more about any one of the many minor characters that appear in the novel, from the homeliest B-girl to the sharpest-eyed hotel dick, with just a few quick lines of dialogue or description.  His period details are always fascinating but never digressive and he captures in Ogden’s first-person voice both the character’s amoral worldview and his sick sense of humor.

If you’re not familiar with Phillips’ Wichita novels featuring the Ogden family (which includes The Ice Harvest, The Walkaway and Cottonwood) then The Adjustment is a great place to start catching up with some of my favorite novels of the last decade...The Adjustment the best novel I've read all year." - Spinetingler Magazine