Written like a storyboard and riddled with coincidences.
A Neapolitan policeman goes to war in New York with the American branch of his hometown crime family, in the latest from the Law & Order writer/producer (Street Boys, 2002, etc.).
When Giancarlo LoManto was 15, his father died in the Bronx at the hands of the Camorra, the tougher-than-the-Mafia criminal outfit born under the Bourbons in 18th-century Naples. The late Sig. LoManto had failed to pay the vig and, well, you know how it is. Giancarlo’s mamma, understandably bitter, took her son back to the old country, where he grew up to be a spectacularly successful cop with a mission: to rid the world of the Camorra. He was actually doing pretty well, picking off drug dealers right and left, ducking most of the bullets that came his way, until, just as he was getting ready for a well-deserved, long-deferred holiday on Capri, his sister turns up with bad news. Her daughter Paula, Giancarlo’s high-school age niece, has gone missing, kidnapped from the New York family she was visiting. Giancarlo knows instantly that the kidnapping is a ploy instigated by Don Pietro Rossi, capo of the New York branch of the Camorra and son of the man who offed Giancarlo’s poor late father. Giancarlo has been much too successful in his one-man war on the Rossis, and the handsome young Don is seriously pissed. Flying immediately to New York, Giancarlo is teamed by a high-level cop friend, beautiful up-and-coming second-generation detective Jennifer Fabini, with whom he begins the hunt for Paula that will lead inevitably to a face-off with Pete Rossi. The adventure will bring memories of old grudges, scenes of old evils, much outwitting of lower-level thugs, and a sweet relationship with a savvy homeless Latino lad. There will also be Important Revelations about the shared past of the two antagonists.
Written like a storyboard and riddled with coincidences.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-41097-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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