A crime tale that’s enlivened by a sometimes-heartbreaking but always endearing romance.
In Romig’s (Lies, 2018, etc.) romantic drama, a New York City entrepreneur marries the love of his life and gains a family—a Mafia family.
It’s the mid-1970s when Oren Demetri first sees Angelina Costello at New York University. He’s immediately enamored with her but fearful of approaching her when he realizes that she’s part of the Mafia-tied Costello family. Nine years later, after he’s made the real estate company Demetri Enterprises a success, he has a chance encounter with Angelina. This time, he doesn’t resist, and after a year of dating, he’s ready to marry her. First, he asks permission from Angelina’s crime-boss uncle Carmine, who’s raised her since her parents’ mob-related murders. Carmine makes clear that if Oren is marrying Angelina, he’s marrying into the family. For starters, this means that Oren must start carrying a weapon to ensure Angelina’s safety. He also begins working with Carmine’s son, Vincent, and his own company soon becomes a Costello umbrella. Although the businesses that Oren incorporates are outwardly legitimate, they provide an easy way for the family to launder money. The dark, violent world of organized crime eventually taints the Demetris’ home life when there’s a killing on the same day that the couple’s first child is born. Later, a rumor circulates that a hit on a mob boss was an inside job, and the Costellos may be in imminent danger from people who think they ordered the murder. Meanwhile, Oren faces the possibility of losing the family that he and his wife have made. Romig concentrates his story on Oren and Angelina’s struggling relationship. As a result, certain elements of the Mafia plot stay in the background, including an ongoing federal investigation. The author also scales back the mob-related violence in favor of more suspenseful scenes; in several instances, for example, characters worry about assassins targeting Angelina. In fact, the perpetual sense of threat throughout the book helps to make Oren a more sympathetic protagonist. For instance, when his work for Carmine trumps Angelina’s weekend plans, he bluntly tells her the reason why: “I can’t say no to your uncle.” The evolution of the couple’s relationship is both riveting and poignant. Over the course of three decades, they experience a blissful romance before hitting numerous snags in their marriage. But even when they’re fighting, their love is beyond question; Romig provides readers with persistent reminders of their devotion to each other, such as Oren calling Angelina “mio angelo” (“my angel”). The author’s illustrative prose highlights these romantic aspects even when the two are arguing: “Against the white of the pillows, I could make out the curves of her face, her cheekbones, and the pout of her lips.” The novel becomes more tragic as it nears its end, with a few deaths and one of the Costellos insisting that the Demetris’ adult son take part in the family business. But the overall story, like Oren and Angelina’s marriage, is bittersweet and worthwhile.
A crime tale that’s enlivened by a sometimes-heartbreaking but always endearing romance.Pub Date: Feb. 21, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-947189-40-9
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Romig Works
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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