Whacking Jimmy
A Novel
-
- 5,49 €
-
- 5,49 €
Descrizione dell’editore
It's 1975. Don Vittorio Tucci, head of the Detroit mob, lies on his deathbed as his family and associates secretly jockey for power. Meanwhile, his grandson Bobby Tucci--just an ordinary college student and rock musi-cian, who until now has steered clear of the family business--is drawn into the middle of a power play among the don's hotheaded first lieutenant, his consigliere, and Bobby's own mother, who has designs on being the first woman to lead a major crime family.
It seems simple: His grandfather promises him a $40 million payday if he'll just stay around for a while, lending some stability as the next rightful heir to the Family. But there's a little complication: He's going to have to "make his bones"--prove himself to the Family. His assignment? Kill Jimmy Hoffa.
Whacking Jimmy is a seventies flashback, mafia-style--a classic caper built around one of the greatest unsolved crimes in history. It is a hip, hilarious thriller for those who love writers like Elmore Leonard and for anyone who wants to know one possible, though a bit implausible, solution to the Jimmy Hoffa mystery.
Vittorio Tucci sat with Bobby on the Tillmans' screened porch and watched the little sailboat bob on the water. The sight of it sent a wave of nausea through him. He wanted to lie down with a wet towel on his head, but he wasn't finished with Bobby yet. He summoned the will to keep his voice strong and said, "In a few weeks, things are gonna pop around here. Maybe I'll be dead by then, but it don't matter, they're gonna pop with or without me. When they do, you're gonna be in the middle of it. People are gonna come to you--your mother and her old man, Catello, Relli, the New York Families, and I dunno who else. They're gonna promise you big money, tell you about your responsibilities, warn you about each other. You understand what I'm sayin'?"
"Why would anyone bother with me?" asked Bobby. "They know I've got nothing to do with the Family."
Don Vittorio paused. "You're the last Tucci," he said. "You got the name, and whoever gets you on their side has the strongest claim. In a battle royale the name's gonna carry weight. Now do you understand?"
Bobby nodded.
"Fine," said Don Vittorio. He reached into the pocket of his suit coat and took out an envelope. "This is for you."
"What is it?"
"Swiss bank-account numbers and the name of a guy in Zurich. The dough in the accounts is yours. Forty million bucks."
"Holy shit," said Bobby. "I never knew you had that much."
Don Vittorio's ravaged eyes flashed. "Kid, forty million ain't even the interest on what I got," he said. "But it's all you get."
Bobby wanted to tell his grandfather that he'd miss him. Instead he took the envelope and said, "Thanks for this."
"That's okay, kid," said Don Vittorio, rolling up the window. "I hope you live long enough to spend it."
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Whoever the pseudonymous Wolf may be, he knows how to add a fresh twist to familiar material. Although Jimmy Hoffa's 1975 disappearance has already been put through the fictional grinder by several authors, most recently Jon R. Jackson in his excellent Man with an Ax, Wolf gives his version of the story depth and originality by energizing characters who easily could have become cliches. Don Vittorio Tucci, the Detroit mob leader whose death kickstarts the plot, is an eminently nasty but utterly believable pragmatist. When his daughter-in-law suggests that his 21-year-old grandson Bobby should be his heir, Don Vittorio says, "Bobby's a sissy. He's got hair like a girl. He plays the guitar. Last Christmas he told me he wants to write novels, for Christ's sake. He wouldn't last ten minutes." But Bobby's mother, Annette (the daughter of a Chicago capo, and an astonishingly evil piece of work), persuades the dying man that under her tutelage the boy will do just fine. The fact that Bobby hates his mother and has no desire to enter the family business is also refreshing: there's no instant Michael Corleone-type transformation from upstanding citizen to hoodlum. Wolf has created a gallery of supporting players--a loyal, smart old Jewish sidekick; a pair of inspired black gangsters who keep a boxing kangaroo to soften up the opposition--who are original and often hilarious. As for Hoffa, his death happens far offstage and doesn't have much to do with the rest of the story. But Wolf does have a plausible theory about where his body is buried. 35,000 first printing.
