LOVER BOY

A group of unlikely criminals embarks on a murder scheme in Kronwith’s raunchy debut crime novel.

Sixty-five-year-old Joseph Peck is a Long Island ophthalmologist and self-proclaimed “dog” who’s consumed by his sexual desires, even after they ruined his marriage. His favorite patient is Anna Franklin, whose body he ogles whenever she brings her stepdaughter in for a checkup. One day, Anna comes to his office alone and offers him sexual favors in exchange for his help in killing her husband, the billionaire Jonathan Franklin. Why would she come to an ophthalmologist for a hit job? Peck happens to be childhood friends with retired mobster Tony “Ace” Esposito, who needs the money that Anna is also offering. Ace knows a retired hit man, Sammy “Lover Boy” Vivino, who can take the assignment. All parties are ready and willing, so what can go wrong? Initially, the team manages to pull off the hit, making it look like an accident. What they don’t account for is the determined Detective Jane Rieger of the Nassau County Police Department’s homicide unit. However, Jane’s motivations aren’t quite as simple as they seem, as she may be after a different kind of justice. Kronwith’s prose, as narrated by Peck, is arch and colorful, as when he describes his ex-wife: “The divorce proceedings were very amicable for I realized that I was a cad and told my lawyer to give her what she wanted. I knew she wasn’t going to be a chazza (that’s Yiddish for ‘pig’) about it.” The tone of the book is unusually randy, though, reveling in a level of male fantasy that’s often creepy, as when Peck leers at a high schooler. As a result, readers will be divided on just how amusing they find the novel’s blend of humor, hijinks, and ribaldry. In purely narrative terms, the book is full of delightful twists and reversals; none of it is at all realistic, but as a bit of escapism, it does its job.

A diverting, if sex-obsessed, caper with an unsympathetic protagonist.