“From stacks to Ashes: The Twisted Journey of Stolen Money”

As the title suggests, the entire story revolves around stolen money and where that money ends up going.. Initially, I had a tough time understanding the story between the lines and had to restart the book twice. However, I was satisfied once the entire plot of the story started making sense to me. I loved how realistic the story was, and I know it was based on a true story but the author’s or I would say the translator’s attempt at rewriting the crime story on paper was commendable. The story not only sheds light on the gangsters but also on the bystanders, the innocent people who lost their lives for no reason, the journalists and the entire police department and their attempt at tearing apart the gang.

As one goes along the story, we are made aware of the traumatic past each character had, like one could hear voices in his head, someone had a weird sexual obsession and so on, and we realize the messed up mental place that these men come from. No, that does not justify what they did but rather helps us understand why they did what they did. In the end, when they are caught by Silvia, the police officer, we see that they burn the money that was stolen and this helps us understand that the real reason the gang committed the crime was to feel at ease, to let out the rage each one of them had inside them. Like any other gang, these members also left behind the ones who had helped them when they were in trouble, like the guy who helped them repair the Chevrolet once it was all damaged.

The story also unfolds the truth of how selfish one could be! Once they were surrounded by gunmen and had no escape they burnt the money like it was worthless. Instead of the millions out there who would  die for this amount of cash that burnt, they thought about themselves and the message they wanted to send to the cops. “Burning innocent money is an act of cannibalism” one the TV reporters had said.

The book also lived up to stereotypes one associates with the word gangsters! All of them were drug addicts and needed the high all the time- when they were relaxed or stressed, at the start of their mission and at the end of it. One of the quotes from the book said “Money is the same as drugs: what’s the fundamental is its possession, knowing its there, touching it, checking it’s still in the cupboard, there in its bad slung among the clothes, checking there’s still a half kilo of stuff, a hundred grands worth, being content with it”, drawing symbiosis between the two and explain how money is just as addictive as substance abuse.

My question to you is – what did you like the most or the least about this story?