The Monte Carlo Hustle

Premise: A mystery man named Esposito recruits eight anonymous L.A. crooks to fly to the French Riviera to stop a black-market art sale and steal twenty-five million dollars in Monaco during the prestigious Monaco Grand Prix car race. - From the author of The Monte Carlo Hustle: "I wanted to read a crime story that took place in Monaco the weekend of the Monaco Grand Prix. I wanted to jump into a fast car and go on an adventure. I wanted an escape. But I couldn't find a story like that to read. So, I visited Monaco. And I wrote this." - Belston Campfield - From the characters in The Monte Carlo Hustle: "Nobody's drinking. Good. There are guns involved now." - Mike "I'm drinking." - B "Then we'll shoot you first." - Mike - "Did you hook up with any bored Fontvieille housewives while I was out doing actual work?" - B "A few. They were pleasantly surprised. They expected American men to be uncultured and illiterate. So, we gave them your phone number." - Lou - "If you can't have fun in Monaco on race weekend, you can't have fun anywhere." - Mike - "I'm not really into tall women. But they're French. They have texture. And their English is terrible. So, who knows?" - McQueen - "Zuck, if you're right, and there's no twenty-five mil, I'm going to kill you and throw your body into the Mediterranean." - McQueen "Remember, I have a gun, too." - Zuck - "What'd you think of the quiet one, Brielle?" - B "Kind of a pill." - Lou "I told her you two were perfect for each other." - B - "Spanish prostitute left it behind a couple months ago. Crazy Claudia." - Mike "You remember her name?" - Lou "She lives on the third floor." - Mike "A prostitute lives in this building?" - Chief "Prostitution is legal in Monaco." - Mike - "By the way, what happened to your sacred Southern accent?" - B "Be the part." - McQueen said. "You sound like a high school graduate now." "Jealous?" - "You snorted coke?" - McQueen "Anything for the team." - B "You smell like you pissed yourself in booze." - Joe "I smell like a man." - B "He dies of a heart attack tonight, we'll be richer for it this time tomorrow." - Joe "I should be commended for my performance. Lesser men have won Oscars for theirs." - B Snippets from The Monte Carlo Hustle: - The off-ramp to Monaco led to a road that weaved up a hill to a peak that provided a postcard photo op below of the principality of Monaco, the Mediterranean Sea, and the mountainous terrain of the Maritime Alps that enveloped the country. - Dusk at the Buddha Bar on Race Eve felt like ground zero for the see-and-be-seen crowd. Electronica pulsated from the restaurant's patio speakers. Fashionably dressed thirty- and forty-something patrons-to-be mingled on the patio, which was enclosed by red velvet rope and stanchions. Those not inside the rope schmoozed on the sidewalk. Everybody was dressed so well that even the average-looking people looked inaccessible. - Lou and B had followed Team Trey through the streets of Monte Carlo before winding up in the cocktail lounge of the Fairmont Hotel. The Fairmont-a two-minute walk down the hill from the Buddha Bar-was located at the base of a long driveway off the Fairmont Hairpin, a tight corner of Monte Carlo's Avenue des Spélugues. The Fairmont Hairpin is also part of the Monaco Grand Prix racetrack and is one of the more severe turns in the course's serpentine layout.