The tone of this was so odd. It says it can be read as a standalone, yet I kind of don't understand why we even need the super dramatic dark backstory, other than to justify them having done grievous harm to one another in the past? I also found the timelines for Max’s childhood kind of confusing. He was close to Sam growing up, but then Max's dad, who used to work for Sam's parents (I think?), decided to break away and battle them for control of the city's crime syndicate? Or . . . something? So they beat the shit out of each other in sanctioned fights until Sam put Max in a coma? I . . . guess?

 But like, all of that is revealed before the 10% mark, so it doesn't feel spoilery. Max is just hardcore remembering, because his son has become friends with the infamous friend-turned-nemesis Sam's son at school and they will be meeting when Sam drops his kid off. And nowadays, they're two (damaged widowed) blokes raising their kids. After a tense standoff over a cup of tea, they've made plans to take their families to the aquarium together.

Even though the extremely info-dumpy inner-monologuing of it all wasn’t actively pissing me off, I declined to continue as I was promised a super slow burn with a cliffhanger-y ending by other reviews.