BAD LUCK

by Anthony Bruno ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 16, 1990

Bruno (Bad Guys, Bad Blood) drives deep into Elmore Leonard territory with this violent farce that drops his two feckless FBI agents--Bert Gibbons and Mike Tozzi--into a roundelay of crooked land deals and fight-fixing in Atlantic City. Tozzi, sent to get the goods on ruthless, rabbit-toothed wheeler-dealer Russell Nashe in order to get the goods on Nashe's scams, goes undercover as Nashe's bodyguard--and then under the covers with Nashe's venal, brainless wife Sydney. When Tozzi stops reporting in, Gibbons is rescued from his impending wedding to Lorraine Bernstein, whose lovable-tough mind has been softened by overexposure to Bride magazine, to chase after him. Meantime, Joey and Sal Immordino, of the Mistretta family, deputize their sister, Sister Cecilia, to take Nashe's offer to pay off a $23 million debt by fixing a heavyweight championship bout for their benefit to their boss in New York--but Sister Cil, obsessed with the money that will help her open a home for unwed mothers, doesn't tell them Mistretta's nixed the deal. When Sal, who escaped prosecution for assorted earlier felonies by feigning mental illness (""walking around town without his shoes, talking to his hands. . .that sort of thing""), goes after Tozzi but gets Sydney's replacement Valerie Raynor, the stage is set for a gritty, funny, nasty finale--in which Tozzi gets worked over three times (once by the world heavyweight champ) but comes back to deck the champ and bring in the untouchable, hilariously incompetent Immordinos. The book doesn't create the driving suspense of Leonard at his best, but everything in it dovetails together in a deliriously comic mess. It's like a giant box of chocolates without a single dud.

Pub Date: July 16, 1990

ISBN: 0595506399

Page Count: -

Publisher: Delacorte

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1990

Categories: FICTION