Shakedown: a novel of crime [Hardcover]

Charlie Stella (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2006

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.

Editorial Reviews

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

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Pegasus Books (June 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933648058
• ISBN-13: 978-1933648057
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,489,665 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was born in Manhattan and brought up in Canarsie in Brooklyn. I attended public and catholic schools in Canarsie until going to Minot, North Dakota on a football scholarship. I was hooked as a reader/writer of modern crime fiction after Dave Gresham (my mentor and English teacher) read the opening lines from the George V. Higgins classic, The Friends of Eddie Coyle.

I have worked as a paperboy, watermelon loader, soda-jerk, dishwasher, McDonalds cook, hallway buffer, porter, security guard, UPS laborer, sheetrock carrier, hallway buffer, porter and bouncer, as well as a union window cleaner on 50-story scaffolds and a word processing operator/supervisor/manager.

My favorite crime authors include George V. Higgins, Elmore Leonard, James Ellroy, Ken Bruen, Daniel Woodrell, George Pelecanos, Craig McDonald, Vicki Hendricks and Rick Marinick.

My novels are considered hardboiled and are dialogue driven. I write about small time operators and their dreams. While I do not condone (or agree) with what some of my characters might say during the course of a novel, I defend their right to be idiots and bigots. If you are looking for politically correct crime novels, skip mine.

Three of my novels are now available on kindle (Eddie's World, my 1st novel), Charlie Opera (my third novel) and Mafiya (my 6th novel). Jimmy Bench-Press (my 2nd novel) and Cheapskates (my 4th novel) will be available on kindle shortly.

I have lived in Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan and Long Island in New York and Perth Amboy in New Jersey. I currently reside in Joisey (once again). I have three children (all grown now), a wonderful tomata (wife--the Principessa Ann Marie) and the most fierce bichon-friese in the world--Rigoletto.

I am an American-Italian and never confuse the two. I was born in America and will never be apologetic about that.

I treasure the time I spend with Ann Marie and Rigoletto like you can't believe.

You can also find short stories of mine in the following anthologies/crime fiction collections:

Plots with Guns Anthology, edited by Anthony Neil Smith: Young Tommy Burns (Dennis McMillan)* Available now.

Dublin Noir, edited by Ken Bruen: Tainted Goods (Akashic Books, March 2006)

Hardboiled Brooklyn, edited by Reed Farrel Coleman: Waiting for Gallo (Bleakhouse, May 2006)

Baltimore Noir, edited by Laura Lippman: Ode to the Orioles (Akashic Books, May 2006)

The Adventure of the Missing Detective: And 25 of the Years Finest Crime and Mystery Stories! (edited by Ed Gorman & Martin Greenburg): Father Diodorus (Carroll & Graf)* Available now.

Bloodlines: An Anthology of Horse Racing, edited by Maggie Estepp & Jason Starr: The Cynical Breed (Vintage, Fall 2006)

Reviews of my work can be found on my web page at www.charliestella.com

Feel free to write me at any time at [e-mail]

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fast, funny and violent, September 15, 2006

By 

Henry W. Wagner (Rockaway, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Shakedown: a novel of crime (Hardcover)

Ex-Mob bookmaker Bobby Genarro is not a Mafioso, he's just a guy who got caught up with the wrong people at the wrong time in his life. Things changed after he started dating the beautiful and fiery Lin Yao--Bobby quit his job, and began planning for a very different future, one that included marrying his paramour and moving far from New York's Little Italy, where he'd spent most of his life.

Intent on implementing this scheme, Bobby has purchased an engagement ring for Lin Yao, which he plans to give her at an opportune moment. Fate has other ideas, however, as former colleagues suddenly resurface, trying to extort money from Bobby on the orders of the new mob boss. Although he knows he'll have to pony up a token amount to get them off his back, the figure Bobby has in mind is nowhere near the sum the crooks demand. Unable to go to the law, Bobby scrambles to resolve the unfinished business from his past so he can pursue a brighter future.

Fast, funny and violent, Shakedown is crime fiction at its very best, recalling the work of masters like Elmore Leonard and Donald Westlake. An instinctive storyteller, Stella combines the humorous and the horrifying to great effect. The Little Italy he evokes lives and breathes, providing a realistic backdrop to the trials and tribulations of his very human cast, all of whom are very carefully drawn. Stella's cops and criminals are real people struggling with outsize problems, making for "arresting" reading.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dagos and Goombas and Micks, oh My!, September 6, 2006

By 

Gary Griffiths (Los Altos Hills, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Shakedown: a novel of crime (Hardcover)

Charlie Stella indeed lives up to what the Chicago Sun-Times describes as "...the best crime writer you've never read." And after ripping non-stop through action-crammed pages of wise guys doing bad deeds, I couldn't help wondering: "why haven't I ever heard of this guy?" Check out the dust cover and just take a look at Stella - that mug screams New York, the mob, and "fuggetaboutit." With a street-hardened rawness that makes Puzo read like Mother Goose, Stella tells the story of Bobby Gennaro, recently retired bookmaker for the mob that simply wants to settle down and marry girl friend Lin Yao, raise a family, and leave the famiglia behind. Except the Soprano-boys won't hear of it, shaking Bobby down for a piece of the action he's stowed away during his wayward days. But in the world of Charlie Stella, the Italian mob isn't edgy enough, and soon Bobby finds himself in the middle of not only the Godfather's guys, but the Chinese mob, their Irish counterparts, and a crooked cop. Suspense builds between some raunchy sex and people getting turned into Swiss cheese, leading to an inevitable crescendo of even more violence.

But a word of fair warning to the gentle readers of Berkeley or Palo Alto: Charlie Stella must have been absent for diversity training: his frequent use of insensitive terms like "chink", "Dago", and "mick" may offend more enlightened ears.

But don't get me wrong - this isn't all sex, brutality, and political incorrectness. The dialogue is sharp and authentic, and there's even room for a street-smart priest to raise the book's levels of social redeeming factors. But not that much. So trust me - Charlie Stella is the real deal, a crime writer who "gets" the streets of New York and the thugs who walk them. This may have been my first Stella novel, but definitely not my last - I've already ordered two of his earlier works.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Compelling Neo-Noir Thriller, April 27, 2008

By 

TMStyles (California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Shakedown: a novel of crime (Paperback)

"Shakedown" was my first Charlie Stella novel and it will not be my last by any means. Stella is a master of dialogue and atmosphere; indeed, his take on the mob and the mean streets of Manhatten reads like a Martin Scorcece screenplay. I cannot emphasize how authentic and captivating his dialogue and character interactions are written.

The story is simple enough yet, like so much of life, quickly escalates into unimagined complications. Bobby Gennaro was a non-made book maker working for the Mafia who decided he had skimmed enough bets for himself and "retired" to move into a new life which includes marrying his love Lin Yao.

Unfortunately, the mob is in a period of turmoil and one capo or captain after another is "flipping" or turning informant. The newest powers distrust Bobby because he retired only months before his boss "flipped" causing another power struggle along with retribution. As the former mobster's followers are "whacked" in a process of elimination, Bobby becomes higher profile than he wanted. A local captain decides to put the squeeze on Bobby for a portion of the imagined money he may have skimmed.

This sets in motion a series of events that ultimately entwine the Mafia, competing factions of the Irish mob, the Chinese triads (led by Lin Yao's cousin, Rickey Zhu), and, of course, a crooked cop. As Booby tries to traverse an ever increasing battleground in an effort to extricate himself from the Mafia's radar, he leaves behind death, mayhem, and betrayal. Bobby is likable, believable, and none too gentle as a foe of the mobs.

Stella writes in a fluid, literate style that captivates the reader and engages the reader in his character's world. His style truly reflects that of a screenplay; in fact, I would expect to see this work in movie form soon. There is a healthy dose of humor but only in appropriate good vs. evil interactions...his good guys are infinitely smarter than his bad guys. Only a rushed ending that ties up all the pieces in a few pages kept this from being a 5 star rating for me. I highly recommend this novel to devotees of the neo-noir thriller genre.