Shakedown

About this item

Get married, have a kid-it's not much to ask. Unless you've got to first divorce the mob. And Bobby Genarro only thinks he has, in this brutal, funny new crime novel from Charlie Stella, "who," says the Chicago Sun-Times , "may just be the best crime writer you've never read." For three months now, ex-bookmaker Bobby G has been heading down the straight and narrow. He's got the girl-pretty Lin Yao-and he's bought the ring. Then his old boss flips and rats on his Mafioso associates. And before you can say the Mott Street Shadows, the wiseguys' shakedown is escalating into warfare with a Chinese gang in the heart of Little Italy. Bobby G has got trouble. Charlie Stella , the author of five underworld novels, lives with his wife Anne Marie in New Jersey. From Publishers Weekly In this smoothly compact and often funny crime thriller, Stella's fifth novel (after 2005's Cheapskates ), New York City's Feast of San Gennaro is only days away when Tommy Agro and John Forzino decide to shake an extra payoff out of Bobby Gennaro, a young ex-mob bookmaker. Determined to distance himself from the wiseguys and keep all the money he's skimmed, Bobby is tough enough for the job but likable enough to appeal to most readers. The grief he gets from his fiancée, Lin Yao, is more than understandable, under the circumstances. Stella moves like a king cat through his usual New York–New Jersey Mafia milieu, though as Det. John DeNafria wryly observes, "Look at what's become of the mob. They're in tatters." Tommy Agro, with his frequent misspeaking—"women were always his Italy's heel"—is a special highlight this outing. Fans of the leaner, meaner novels of Elmore Leonard from 20 years ago have great reading waiting in every new Stella. (June) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist Starred Review Retired New York bookie Bobby G is determined to leave his Mafia past behind. He has a nice girlfriend and a substantial retirement fund (so what if the money's a little tainted?). But when a captain of the Vignieri crime family flips--and rats on his associates--Bobby once again finds himself deep in a world of thick-neck thugs. Stella, a rising star in the neo-noir thriller world, renders memorable characters who are every bit as bad as those in Scorcese's GoodFellas . There's Joe Quack, proud of the physical endowment he's affectionately dubbed "the hose"; neophyte Johnny Forzino, a former NFL prospect who handily bench-presses 400 pounds; and Tommy Agro, whose punishment of the English language is both cruel and unusual. ("It's time to get down to brass taxes," he tells an associate. "Put your nose to the limestone.") Bobby G's formidable former employers think they're due at least 2 percent of his take, but Bobby, smart and a smart-ass (and a bit combative, too), is loath to give his enemies a penny, much less 50 grand, until the love of his life's life is put in jeopardy by a nefarious Irish goon. This is the fifth underworld thriller for Stella (following Cheapskates , 2005), and his deft plotting, acerbic humor, and knack for street talk will delight fans of Donald Westlake and Elmore Leonard, whose patter-happy bad guys remain the genre's gold standard. Allison Block Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved About the Author Charlie Stella's first novel drew favorable comparison with such masters of the crime novel as Mario Puzo and Elmore Leonard, and since then the critics have lauded his emergence as rising talent in the genre. MAFIYA is his sixth novel. Charlie and his wife Ann Marie live in New Jersey.