Payback

As the wild building boom of the 1980s galvanizes the construction rackets, both the Mafia and the feds stake out territory in New York City's eternally explosive Hell's Kitchen, longtime turf of the Irish mob.

At the center of the story: two Irish brothers, Paddy and Billy Adare.  One is an enforcer for the mob.  The other, about to enter law school, works as a sandhog in the tunnels below Manhattan.  Important to each other since childhood, they are caught in a crossfire of greed and savage violence that puts their loyalties -- to family, neighborhood, and each other -- to a brutal test.

Thomas Kelly was born and raised in New Jersey.  He worked in a wide variety of construction jobs as a teenager, and was a sandhog while attending Fordham University. After graduating with a Bachelor's degree in political economy, he went on to earn a Master's degree in public administration from Harvard University.

Since the early 1980s, Kelly has been active in local and national politics through labor unions. He worked as a political operative for the Teamsters Union, as a New York State special events planner for the Clinton campaign, as Director of Advance for the David Dinkins campaign, and as Political Director for the Cuomo campaign. He also ran a nonprofit organization for trade unions.

Kelly is 35 years old and lives in New York City.  Payback is his first novel.