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THE CLEVELAND CONNECTION by Les Roberts

THE CLEVELAND CONNECTION

by Les Roberts

Pub Date: Feb. 23rd, 1993
ISBN: 0-312-08746-2
Publisher: St. Martin's

Milan Jacovich, the Cleveland p.i. of Slovene heritage (Deep Shaker, etc.), in trying to locate a missing grandfather of Serbian extraction, must sort through age-old Balkan animosities—as well as modern-era wise-guy rules of conduct. Bogdan Zdale is eventually found, executed, by means of a single bullet to the back of the head. Whom had this morose, and mostly silent, old man—who'd spent four years in a Nazi death camp—angered? As Milan acquaints himself with Zdale's friends at Janko's Tavern and with the Serb community's paterfamilias, Lazlo Samarzio, he becomes more convinced that the killing tied in with Zdale's war experiences. Was he a patriot? Or Nazi-lover? The answer pricks the consciences of survivors from Ohio to Wisconsin while Milan also wrestles with death threats to his newspaper friend Ed, whose column condemning impropriety in city contract bids caused the Dosti family to call in a New York hit man. A concussion or two later, Milan has warned off the assassin and offered an ``honorable'' way out (suicide) to one of Zdale's misguided, misinformed family members. Editorial pruning would have helped, particularly with the repetitiveness, but, still, a good—and timely—Yugoslav cultural primer.