THE RACKETS

An absorbing, bleak urban melodrama about Manhattan politics and labor union intrigues, from the former sandhog, mayoral aide, and author of the smashing debut novel Payback (1997).

It begins on a high note when Jimmy Dolan, advance man for New York’s Republican mayor, rashly decks Teamster boss Frankie Keefe at a highly visible political event—an act that costs Jimmy his job, and initiates a downward spiral reminiscent of John O’Hara’s Appointment in Samara. But Kelly has bigger fish to fillet, and the story slowly and steadily branches out, focusing in turn on the interconnected experiences of several vividly realized characters. Some of the more prominent are Jimmy’s widowed father Mike, an honest teamster who’ll challenge Keefe’s presidency in the upcoming election; Jimmy’s former lover, policewoman Tara O’Neil (who’s wounded in action, in a brilliantly handled scene); their childhood friend Liam Brady, a hard-drinking Gulf War veteran, now an “arms trafficker” with lucrative criminal connections; Frankie Keefe’s stone-faced enforcer Pete Cronin (who’s also Keefe’s wife’s lover); and—best of all—Jimmy’s uncle Pius “Punchy” Dolan, an adipose, paranoid millionaire whose criminal past is slowly, remorselessly hunting him down. Kelly knows this turf as well as any contemporary novelist, which explains why these bristling, profanity-laden episodes are invariably potent and convincing—even if readers are likely to note a few too many echoes of the urban crime novel’s consensus classic: Mario Puzo’s The Godfather. Nevertheless, Kelly works interesting variations on familiar formulas, particularly in the story’s latter half, when Jimmy Dolan takes up the crusade his father could not finish, Cronin plots against his boss, and the Russian mob’s involvement in union politicking keeps upping the body count.

At its best, reminiscent of Richard Price and Nelson Algren, as well as the aforementioned Puzo; in its more generic moments, rather like an extended episode of NYPD Blue. Still, a rattling good read.