Cheapskates - Hardcover

Stella, Charlie

3.81

74 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0786714794 ISBN 13: 9780786714797

Publisher: Carroll & Graf Pub, 2005

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

Former bus driver and ex-con Reese Waters wants to help his prison buddy Peter Rizzo, but his good intentions will land him in hot water with the mafia and the Nation of Islam, as well as New York's finest.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly:

It takes a finely tuned ear to write dialogue that rings true, and Stella (Charlie Opera, etc.) has it. With his hapless crooks and wry humor, he belongs in line behind Elmore Leonard and Donald E. Westlake. Former New York City bus driver Reese Waters, a na�ve black man unjustly convicted for car theft, becomes friends with his prison cellmate, Pete Rizzo, after they protect each other from assaults by, alternately, Mafia-connected and Black Muslim inmates. The day they're both released, Pete plans to collect $50,000 he says his ex-wife Janice owes him, but he's shot to death. Reese determines to find the killer, get the money and bury his friend. As Reese, assisted by a former bus driver buddy and new lady friend, weaves through New York, he unknowingly interferes with a merry round-about of overlapping plots involving the cops, the FBI, Janice's skinflint father, Pete's obnoxious family and assorted, mostly inept, Mafioso, among many others. As the title suggests, most of them live on the cheap; the worst is Janice's father, who steals packets of artificial sweeteners from restaurants and buys discounted damaged pastries. Reese accomplishes his goal in a breathless finale that Stella orchestrates from seven different viewpoints. Readers will eagerly await the next book from this talented author.
Copyright � Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist:

Two pals walk out of New York's Fishkill Penitentiary. One, Reese Walters, wants nothing more than to go home to his mom in Brooklyn and drive a cab. The other, Peter Rizzo, wants nothing to do with Reese's plan of buying a cab and lives only for revenge on his ex-wife, who made off with $50,000 of his money. Reese's plans explode when his pal is shot down on the street. Bothered by the indifference shown by both cops and Rizzo's family to the murder, Reese starts looking into his friend's death on his own. This puts the somewhat innocent Reese into the middle of a metropolitan Macbeth filled with mobsters, bent cops, a Nation of Islam splinter group, and a rapacious ex-wife. Stella, the author of three well-received, character-driven crime novels--Eddie's World (2001), Jimmy Bench-Press (2002), and Charlie Opera (2003)--presents another deeply realized hero confronting a greed-crazed world. Connie Fletcher
Copyright � American Library Association. All rights reserved

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.