THE ROMEO CLUB

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.