Bad Apple

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 3 OCT 1994

In their engagingly quirky sixth outing, the FBI's odd couple of Tozzi and Gibbons (Bad Guys) learn that hell hath no fury like a mobster scorned. A bad day for Gibbons gets worse when fellow agent Gary Peterson, working undercover, is shot while waiting to meet with crazy mob middleman Tony ``Bells'' Bellavita. Meanwhile, the Agency has let another mob associate, Bobby ``Freshy'' DeFresco, slide in exchange for introducing Tozzi, also working undercover, to Bells, who takes him to meet big-time loan shark Buddha Stanzione. Freshy is a minnow swimming among mob sharks, but Bells sponsors him because he's crazy for Freshy's sister, Gina, who's a buyer at Macy's-and who is Tozzi's current romantic interest as well, though she knows him only as ``Mike Santoro the pornmeister.'' Bells persuades Buddha to loan Freshy and Tozzi start-up dough, then takes them on a shakedown tour that ends at Macy's, where he sees his face on every TV-wanted for Peterson's shooting-and realizes that Tozzi is FBI. Enraged, Bells grabs Gina and Tozzi and splits with revenge on his mind-only to be followed, with hilariously limited success, by Freshy and an accomplice, who snatch Gibbons and his wife to track Bells in an FBI surveillance van. Multiple chase scenes, mob justice and women trouble for both agents are zanily choreographed by Bruno right up to a climactic Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade shootout. Though paced more slowly than other entries in the series, partly because of a relative paucity of Bruno's always drop-dead dialogue, this story builds white-knuckle tension even as its earthy heroes continue to amuse and charm.