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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Beltway spin doctor Dezenhall (Nail `Em! Confronting High-Profile Attacks on Celebrities and Businesses) tries his hand at fiction with this comic caper about a Jewish pollster put to work for an aging South Jersey/Philly Mafia don. Middle-aged Jonah Eastman, a D.C. spin doctor for hire whose business is in the doldrums, is summoned back to his Jersey home by his ailing grandfather Mickey, an old-school Jewish capo for the local Cosa Nostra kingpin, Mario Vanni. Mickey's cryptic deathbed missive to his nervous grandson directs Jonah to take on the don as a client (Vanni needs a fast image makeover in order to qualify for an Atlantic City casino license "To be a gangster anymore is an acid trip. There's nothin' left in the life but the fantasies about the life") and gives Jonah a veiled hint about some buried Jewish treasure long hidden from the Italians. Rallying support from a PR colleague, Mickey's Jewish gangsters (one memorably named "Irv the Curve") and a teenage hacker (nicknamed "Dorkus"), Jonah launches a massive disinformation campaign intended to paint Vanni as a pillar of the community. Along the way, Jonah manages to fall in love with a klezmer musician at Mickey's funeral, tick off Vanni's psychopathic consigliere (incongruously named "Noel") and become probably the only pollster to set up shop inside a giant roadside elephant. Mixing light comedy with a nostalgic look at the Jersey shore and the days when the mishpocha and the paisani were kinsmen, if uneasy ones, Dezenhall's debut is a breezy alternative to The Sopranos and shows that with the right press, even savages can be saints.
From Booklist
Readers won't believe this is a first novel: sharply drawn characters, delightful dialogue, and a plot that not only delivers the goods but does so with piles of panache. Even the premise is a knockout: an Atlantic City mobster is having trouble getting a casino license, so he hires a prominent Washington pollster to beef up his public image. Dezenhall complicates things by making the pollster the grandson of another prominent mobster, providing him with solid grounding in the shady world of organized crime and giving him a nemesis, a grudge-bearing gangster with a deliciously violent streak. The author, a noted "spin" expert (he's president of Nichols-Dezenhall, a Washington crisis- management firm), fills the novel with scads of delicious detail. It is oddly thrilling to watch pollster Jonah Eastman marshal his troops, work his magic, and tell the American public what to think. Not only does Dezenhall have a sure grasp of his material, he also has a nice comedic touch. Like Donald E. Westlake, when he's in his comedy mode, Dezenhall starts us off chuckling, moves us easily to guffaws, and then winds up with some nicely timed belly laughs. (This novel does bear a slight similarity to Westlake's The Fugitive Pigeon, 1965, but only in its mob-played-for-laughs aspect.) If this debut is any indication, Dezenhall's career as a novelist shouldn't need much spinning to take off. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews
Beltway spin doctor Dezenhall (Nail `Em! Confronting High-Profile Attacks on Celebrities and Businesses) tries his hand at fiction with this comic caper about a Jewish pollster put to work for an aging South Jersey/Philly Mafia don. Middle-aged Jonah Eastman, a D.C. spin doctor for hire whose business is in the doldrums, is summoned back to his Jersey home by his ailing grandfather Mickey, an old-school Jewish capo for the local Cosa Nostra kingpin, Mario Vanni. Mickey's cryptic deathbed missive to his nervous grandson directs Jonah to take on the don as a client (Vanni needs a fast image makeover in order to qualify for an Atlantic City casino license "To be a gangster anymore is an acid trip. There's nothin' left in the life but the fantasies about the life") and gives Jonah a veiled hint about some buried Jewish treasure long hidden from the Italians. Rallying support from a PR colleague, Mickey's Jewish gangsters (one memorably named "Irv the Curve") and a teenage hacker (nicknamed "Dorkus"), Jonah launches a massive disinformation campaign intended to paint Vanni as a pillar of the community. Along the way, Jonah manages to fall in love with a klezmer musician at Mickey's funeral, tick off Vanni's psychopathic consigliere (incongruously named "Noel") and become probably the only pollster to set up shop inside a giant roadside elephant. Mixing light comedy with a nostalgic look at the Jersey shore and the days when the mishpocha and the paisani were kinsmen, if uneasy ones, Dezenhall's debut is a breezy alternative to The Sopranos and shows that with the right press, even savages can be saints.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Readers won't believe this is a first novel: sharply drawn characters, delightful dialogue, and a plot that not only delivers the goods but does so with piles of panache. Even the premise is a knockout: an Atlantic City mobster is having trouble getting a casino license, so he hires a prominent Washington pollster to beef up his public image. Dezenhall complicates things by making the pollster the grandson of another prominent mobster, providing him with solid grounding in the shady world of organized crime and giving him a nemesis, a grudge-bearing gangster with a deliciously violent streak. The author, a noted "spin" expert (he's president of Nichols-Dezenhall, a Washington crisis- management firm), fills the novel with scads of delicious detail. It is oddly thrilling to watch pollster Jonah Eastman marshal his troops, work his magic, and tell the American public what to think. Not only does Dezenhall have a sure grasp of his material, he also has a nice comedic touch. Like Donald E. Westlake, when he's in his comedy mode, Dezenhall starts us off chuckling, moves us easily to guffaws, and then winds up with some nicely timed belly laughs. (This novel does bear a slight similarity to Westlake's The Fugitive Pigeon, 1965, but only in its mob-played-for-laughs aspect.) If this debut is any indication, Dezenhall's career as a novelist shouldn't need much spinning to take off. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews
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