The Car Thief

In a usual crime story, the consequences of a crime, if there are any, descend in a heap at the end, as justice is (or isn't) served. In this novel, an autobiographical debut from 1972, the consequences are the story. Alex Housman, the teenage title character, is joyriding without much joy as the story opens, and he's caught soon after and left in a dim, probationary limbo, discovering those consequences as he goes. It's riveting, because Alex is such a vivid, changeable character, and because Weesner, a former teen car thief himself, tells his story with a clear-eyed tenderness that might remind you of previous Phinney by Post picks like A Kestrel for a Knave and The Queen's Gambit.