I liked A Visit From the Goon Squad just okay, and if it weren't for its inclusion in this year's Tournament of Books I may have skipped Manhattan Beach. I'm so glad I didn't. Structurally very different from Goon, this novel is quite straight-forward in its narration and its relatively small set of characters.

I loved the protagonist, Anna Kerrigan, wholeheartedly. As I continued to read, I realized what I was reading was a gangster story but I didn't recognize it because it's told through Anna's point of view for the most part - a woman whose father may or may not have been a mob hit. It doesn't stick to tropes. Egan's writing is beautiful from its wonderful descriptions of New York in the 30s and 40s, to the way she illustrates Anna's disabled sister Lydia (a character that conjured deeply visceral feelings when I read about her/from her POV), to the adventure and fun of the diving plot, and to one of the better sex scenes I've read in a novel.

It's probably more of a 4.5 when I think about some of the strings that come together for the ending... and for one of the decisions I didn't quite understand from the Anna I came to know.

Recommend for its cinematic quality and lovely portrait of old New York from a woman's POV.