A hilarious take on the caper novel that gains depth from the characters’ affectionate bonds.
Friends hatch a daring rescue scheme for their compulsive-gambler buddy in this comedic thriller.
At Johnny Paradise’s Italian Restaurant in Inlet Cove, New York, three friends in their mid-60s—whom Johnny dubs “The Romeo Club; Restless Old Men Eating Out”—regularly meet for huge meals, plenty of wine, and shared laughter. The threesome consists of Frankie Grace, a funeral director; Dr. Claudio Odelli, a general practitioner nicknamed Cardio; and real estate developer Tim Collins. Despite their 30-year friendship, Tim has managed to keep his severe gambling problem hidden from the others, his losses covered so far by financial crimes, maxed-out credit cards, and loans from the Albanian, Chinese, Russian, and Italian mobs. Disastrous Super Bowl bets and impending bankruptcy put him in a hopeless situation that Reno Amore, a senior investigator for the FBI, hopes to profit from. He’s no slouch; “the notches on his shield added up to a Who’s Who of mafia crime bosses.” Amore demands that Tim wear a wire, gather evidence, and testify on the stand against his crime world creditors. When bullets smash through the front window of Paradise’s Italian Restaurant, no one is killed. Most think that Mafia captain Sam Napoli was the target, but in fact the shooting is a message to Tim from the Albanians. In despair, Tim confesses the truth to his friends, moaning, “I wish I were dead. I’m worth more dead than alive, anyway. It’s the only way out.” With Johnny and Nino, his Italian nephew, Frankie and Cardio devise a cunning plan: They will use their skills and connections to convincingly fake Tim’s death and get him a new identity. In the process, Frankie and Cardio also prepare for life changes, but first, they’ll have to pull off an elaborate charade to fool the four mobs as well as the canny Amore.
In his third novel, Graziano tells a story whose snowballing complications will keep readers so engrossed in the friends’ efforts that it’s easy to forget how little Tim deserves them. They immediately turn their focus from Tim’s lies, omissions, and misdeeds to strategizing ways to help, showing they’re more than Johnny’s description of them as “the most juvenile, unruly group you will ever meet.” In the way of all heist tales, readers, too, will focus sympathy on the conspirators’ cleverness, such that despite Amore’s smarts and persistence, it’s fun to see him duped. The author writes well about his settings, as when richly evoking wrong-side-of-the-tracks Westchester County: “The neighborhood consisted of light-manufacturing plants, sprinkled among illegal three-family homes with worn vinyl siding and aluminum gutters tearing away from the fascia.” Similarly, Graziano draws on his experience as a licensed funeral director to supply the authentic details of what it would actually take to successfully stage a death, from obtaining a substitute corpse to delivering a brilliantly plausible explanation for why the ashes aren’t available for DNA study.
A hilarious take on the caper novel that gains depth from the characters’ affectionate bonds.Pub Date: Oct. 30, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73526-530-8
Page Count: 252
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Jan. 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.
Character assassination reigns supreme, if not uncontested, in a Long Island suburb.
April Masterson loves her husband, corporate attorney Elliott; their 7-year-old, Bobby; and her YouTube channel, “April’s Sweet Secrets.” What she doesn’t love is whoever’s texting her warnings about how Bobby isn’t really in their backyard while she’s busy filming her videos or withering critiques of her baking show or veiled accusations about her past and threats about her present. Her best friend, former prosecutor Julie Bressler, may be bossy and opinionated, but surely she’d never turn on April this way. Who else might know enough to send April goodies like a picture of her kissing Mark Tanner, Bobby’s soccer coach? Though April struggles to get Elliot to take her ordeal seriously, even when she shows up at his office for a lunch date, he’s protected by his receptionist, Brianna Anderson, whose attachment to her boss goes far beyond loyalty. Then Julie turns on her; Maria Cooper, her friendly new next-door neighbor, turns on her; and in the most mind-boggling scene, Doris Kirkland, April’s mother, whose dementia has brought her to a nursing home, turns on her. McFadden releases an escalating series of toxins so deftly into the suburban atmosphere that it’s practically an anticlimax when someone gets killed and April instantly becomes the prime suspect. But that’s only a setup for the tale’s boldest move: switching its narrator from April to a fair-weather friend who frames the whole nightmare in dramatically different terms. As a special gift to her savviest fans, the author throws in an even more jolting epilogue that’s as hard to forget as it is to believe.
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249600
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
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