1. Do you think SMOKED would make a good film? Who would you cast in the leading roles?
   
   
2. How important do you think the setting is for SMOKED? Do you think the novel would have worked as well if it had been based in the UK or in a different part of the US?
   
   
3. Do you like Cruz as a character? Although he is a ‘bad guy’ is that really the whole story’?
   
   
4. Lola can clearly look after herself as she more than proves with Mr Shaggy and Mr Blue Eyes at the beginning of the book. But how has she ended up in a dangerous situation again? Do you think there is such a thing as attracting trouble?
   
   
5. Lola and Smoke, Cruz and Pamela – seemingly both couples made up of people with very different personalities. Is it true, therefore, in the novel that opposites attract or are the people involved more alike that you might first think? What are the real reasons behind the attraction?
   
   
6. SMOKED does contain some intense moments that might make some readers a bit squeamish. What do you make of this – how do you think the novel would have worked if it had been less graphic?
   
   
7. ‘When you kill a man, make sure he is dead’ (page 93). What do you make of the cold brutality of Oskar’s lesson to Cruz? Do you think this lesson might have been relevant to other characters in the novel?
   
   
8. What effect does childhood poverty and exposure to violence have on the characters?
   
   
9. Smoke Dugan is intelligent and well-read, even somewhat cultured.  Yet he spent his entire life as a career criminal.  Why would he choose to do that?  Is it a choice? 

Suggested Other Reading:

Get Shorty – Elmore Leonard
Gone for Good – Harlan Coben
The Enemy – Lee Child