An engrossing, solidly entertaining organized-crime story with a few twists.
In this suspenseful crime novel, tensions rise between the Albanian and Italian mafias on the streets of New York.
Two powerful criminal organizations—the Albanian Marku family and the Italian Miceli family—maintain an uneasy coexistence in the neighborhood along Arthur Avenue in the Bronx. Aided by its fearsome reputation, the Albanian mob has been making inroads into rackets previously controlled by the Micelis, who, after a loss in recent decades of traditional values like loyalty and silence, have been decimated by the FBI. The groups are headed by Ilir Marku and Carmine Miceli, a pair of old-fashioned patriarchs—Godfather-type figures guided by honor, tradition, and caution. But when Ilir Marku’s son is killed in a rooftop drug deal gone bad, reports that an Italian man may be responsible threaten to ignite a war between the two families. It could be the start of a blood feud the Albanians call gjakmarrja: a pursuit of vengeance that can lead to the targeting of a whole family’s worth of male relatives. Gino Ranno, a real estate developer and family friend of the suspected shooter, tries to save the suspect’s life by working his extensive criminal connections. Accustomed to being around gangsters but unprepared for the level of violence he must face, Gino is closest to being the novel’s protagonist, although Romano adeptly juggles an assortment of other major characters as well. Carlo Del Greco, the veteran detective working the case (in the pay of the Markus), finds himself playing a double game as he tries to solve the murder case while also reporting to benefactors who have little interest in the finer, lawful points of the criminal justice system. The prose sometimes dips into cliché, but Romano keeps the pacing tight. He also displays a keen ear for dialogue and a sharp eye for small details, whether in the fast-paced violence and confusion of a street gunfight or at a Bronx safe house decked out in plastic-covered living room furniture, ornate chandeliers, and prisonlike iron bars on the windows and doors.
An engrossing, solidly entertaining organized-crime story with a few twists.Pub Date: Dec. 23, 2011
ISBN: 978-1467923033
Page Count: 332
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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