The Angel of Montague Street
A Novel
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
In the fall of '73, Brooklyn, New York, is home to worn-down hotels, wiseguys, immigrants, the disturbed, the disenfranchised, and a few people just trying to make an honest buck. When Silvano Iurata's troubled brother, Noonie, rumored to be living in Brooklyn Heights, goes missing, Silvano returns to a place he swore he'd never set foot in again.
Silvano left Brooklyn a long time ago -- wanting to leave behind his family and their seedy mob connections, and a past that just won't stay buried. The jungles of Viet Nam felt more hospitable to him than his own hometown; now that he's back, he doesn't intend to stay for long. His cousin Domenic has harbored a deadly grudge against him for something that happened when they were teenagers, but they aren't kids anymore, and his cousin has some dangerous friends. Silvano needs to find out what happened to his brother and get out -- fast.
A tale of revenge and redemption, The Angel of Montague Street has the same vivid characters, razor-sharp detail, and dead-on dialogue that made Norman Green's debut novel, Shooting Dr. Jack, an unforgettable snapshot of life on the streets of Brooklyn. With its perceptive, poignant heart and gripping plot, this is literary suspense at its best.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
As a fresh face in the hard-boiled crime fiction sweepstakes, Green (Shooting Dr. Jack) is carving out a niche for himself with his piercing portraits of men trapped by their tainted pasts. Green's new hero, Silvano Iurata, is a Vietnam vet and a Buddhist who has returned to his native Brooklyn. He knows that he should not have come back home, since his mob-connected family has it in for him, but he has to find his brother, Noonie, who has mysteriously disappeared. He haunts the seedy hotels, dark alleys, dives and flophouses of the borough, drifting from one false lead to the next, deciphering double-crosses and dodging bullets, fists and romance. His relatives hold a number of grudges, both real and imagined, against him. Uncle Angelo, a genuine mobster out of central casting, believes Silvano is untrustworthy and spills family secrets. Little Dom, Silvano's cousin, wants him dead for a series of slights going back to their teen years. While Green lacks the clever wordplay of Elmore Leonard or the brooding explosiveness of Joe Connelly and George Pelacanos, he gets off some hilarious bits of dialogue, sudden bursts of manic action and sharp tongue-in-cheek descriptions. The mystery of his brother's disappearance loses some of its urgency, but Silvano's journey is no less gripping. At first glance, he may seem like the usual noir hero at war with himself, but Green taps into something larger with his subtle pronouncements about family curses, bad choices, lost souls, mindless violence and redemption. This sophomore effort cements his place in the upper echelons of neo-noir. 7-city author tour.
