The Old Turk's Load
-
- $14.99
Publisher Description
A "wonderfully evocative" caper novel for fans of Donald E. Westlake and Elmore Leonard—"a signal pleasure for crime-fiction aficionados" (Booklist).
New Jersey, 1967. Angelo DiNoto is a powerful crime lord who bolsters his empire by importing pure heroin from an old Turkish farmer. But when a five-million-dollar shipment goes missing during the Newark riots, DiNoto isn't the only one to turn over every rock—and bust some heads, arms, and legs—to find it.
A shady developer sees the heroin as the key to rejuvenating his fading business. His daughter Gloria, literally in bed with a band of wannabe revolutionaries, thinks the stash could be her chance to escape her father's influence and impress the woman she truly loves. "The Mailman" is a longtime postal clerk who's survived the worst that life has to offer—until throat cancer robs him of his voice and the will to live. To him, the drugs are a ticket to a better place. Topping off the wild cast of characters running through Newark and Manhattan is Walkaway Kelly, a private eye and Hell's Kitchen barfly who teeters continually on the brink of redemption.
A twisty, thrilling crime story whose disparate threads converge in an unforgettable showdown, The Old Turk's Load is "a marvel of Chandleresque plotting, with a deeply felt and utterly real '60s setting and a heart as big as all outdoors" (Luc Sante, author of Low Life and Kill All Your Darlings).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The 1967 Newark, N.J., riots form the backdrop for Gibson's quirky, amusing first novel. Farmed on "a remote Anatolian plateau" by an old Turk, "ten plastic sacks of diacetyl morphine" arrive in New Jersey in the care of the notorious Street Brothers, who promptly lose the load during the chaos of the riots that summer. The mob wants it back, but the eccentric Mailman sees it as a shot at a better life. Meanwhile, a businessman hires Manhattan PI Walkaway Kelly to spy on his daughter, the heiress Gloria Mundi. Gloria is dabbling in subversion with "the well-known revolutionary" Kevin Gallagher, a mole for the feds. Kelly's world-weary observations anchor the action: "If there was a genetic predisposition to the low life, this poor bastard had it." This well-handled caper novel recalls the late great Donald Westlake. Readers will want to see more crime, and more comedy, from Gibson.
