A complex Mafia thriller with plenty of engaging characters.
The son of a reformed mobster becomes entangled in a power struggle between a Mafia family and a new, unknown criminal element in Covelli’s (Tom Fool & Three More, 2002) thriller.
In mid-1990s Buffalo, N.Y., when a seemingly innocuous soup-kitchen regular turns up dead— ice-picked to death—Tasio Pecoranera asks his mobster friends to help identify some Mafioso-like suspects he’d seen around the time of the murder. At first, the killing appears to be part of a drug-trade war between the Mafia and a new crew, but it soon becomes clear that it’s a war for information. Evidently, whoever takes control of the forthcoming hybrid-car business—and a liberal mayoral candidate—will wield the most power in Buffalo. The novel’s initial murder mystery is merely a lure to pull Tasio into the spotlight, as Covelli’s thriller teems with colorful characters, including Tasio’s menacing uncle, Carlo, who employs a man named Tommy the Bruiser and a thug known simply as “the Monster” or “the Giant.” The whodunit is soon set aside (though eventually resolved) in favor of numerous elaborate subplots, including another murder, a disappearance, and characters seeking hybrid-car funding from a wealthy family and Japanese investors. (There’s also ambiguity surrounding Tasio’s mother’s alleged suicide.) Much of the story is relayed via dialogue, and Covelli’s prose itself often resembles playful banter—for example, an affluent man is described as having “one and a half tons of fun” financing Carlo’s corrupt schemes. However, when Covelli introduces Tasio’s love interest, she arrives so late in the book that the relationship doesn’t have much impact. Readers may want to skip the “List of Characters” section at the beginning, as it reveals some specific plot points.
A complex Mafia thriller with plenty of engaging characters.Pub Date: March 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0984888207
Page Count: 356
Publisher: Luna Court Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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