Sunburn - Hardcover

Shames, Laurence

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0786860685 ISBN 13: 9780786860685

Publisher: Hyperion, 1995

Synopsis

Joey Goldman, the illegitimate son of the Godfather, turns to his friend, reporter Arty Magnus, for help when his father decides to retire and needs a ghostwriter to help him write his memoirs, but there are many enemies out to stop the project.

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Reviews

Playing Boswell to a mafia don leads a small-time reporter into big-time trouble in Shames's third, and not up to par, Key West seriocomic thriller (after Florida Straits and Scavenger Reef). Godfather Vicente Delgatto, 76, has moved to Key West but is no more retired than Meyer Lansky was in Miami. Still, Vincente's bilious past is catching up to him, so he decides to write his autobiography, using as his ghostwriter Arty Magnus, a hack reporter for the Key West Sentinel. Though Vincente's half-Jewish younger son has urged him to write the book, his elder son, the full-Sicilian Gino Delgatto, hates the idea. When Gino, a money-mad egocentric and vulgarian, tries to muscle in on union vigorish in Miami and gets kidnapped by rival mobsters, he saves himself by spilling the secret about his father's book. Soon, ghostwriter Arty finds himself chased by mobsters who plan to kill him as a warning to Vincente to forget the book-and by the FBI, who want Arty's notes in order to nail the mob. Shames's ape-talking thugs and plaster-of-paris wiseguys are engaging on a sitcom level, but this tale, though sometimes quite funny, has neither the richness of word and depth of feeling of an Elmore Leonard nor the inspired wackiness of a Carl Hiaasen. Author tour.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Aging Vincente Delgatto, capo di tutti capo of the New York Mafia, knows that honor is dead and that the feds have the Mob on the run. He's taken on the worst job in the Big Apple. When his wife dies, Vincente goes to Key West for a rest. Pondering life, death, and his relationship with his two very different sons, Vincente decides to collaborate with a Key West journalist on his memoirs. When news of the book gets out, it throws the Mob, the FBI, and everyone around him into a spin. Filled with wonderful characters, clever dialogue, and an almost palpable sense of place--namely Key West and Queens--it has excitement, tension, laughs, pathos, and a loopy, sweet, spirited wisdom. Sunburn is one of those books you just don't want to end. Thomas Gaughan

While Vincent Delgatto, head of the Pugliese family and leader of the New York City Mafia, is vacationing in Florida with his illegitimate son, he looks for something useful to do. Artie Magnus, newspaper editor, needs a project to get him out of a dead-end job. The two come together to collaborate on a book about Delgatto's life and philosophy. The fly in the ointment is Gino Delgatto, the godfather's legitimate son. Gino, a punk and troublemaker, breezes into Key West with a plan guaranteed to upset the balance of power between the ruling families of organized crime. Third-time novelist Shames (e.g., Scavenger Reef, S. & S., 1994) has a good ear for dialect and an even better sense for using a minimum of description to create real people and believable situations. Recommended for all fiction collections.
Jo Ann Vicarel, Cleveland Heights-University Heights P.L., Ohio
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Hyperion
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0786860685
• ISBN 13: 9780786860685
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288