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MAFIA SUMMER
by E. Duke Vincent
Bloomsbury USA, June 2005
352 pages
$24.95
ISBN: 1582345007


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Vinny Vesta is 18 years old and the lord of his domain. He lives in the Hell's Kitchen section of New York City in 1950, is the son of a high-ranking Mafia boss and the leader of his own band of thieves, the Icemen. It's the summer after he finished high school and he and his gang have spent the last few years doing successful heists. The day he meets new neighbor Sidney Butcher, a bookish sickly Jewish kid, both their lives change.

The cops interrupted the Icemen's last heist and they made off with only a percentage of the loot. When the buyer demands that the full shipment be given to him, or there will be big trouble, he tells Vinny that the rest of the goods can be taken from another Mafia family's warehouse. Though Vinny realizes that something is wrong with the set-up, he and his gang do the job. That sets off the most violent episode in the Mob's history.

The story starts off wonderfully with Vinny meeting and befriending his strange new neighbor, Sidney Butcher. Sid's an almost 180 degree difference from Vinny. He's frail, 16 and of a genius level. His sickly childhood stopped him from going to school and he used the 42nd Street NYC Main Library as his school. His ready answers to many questions attract Vinny and soon Sid is introducing him to the world of knowledge inside the library. Vinny starts to look at his life in the Mob differently.

But unfortunately MAFIA SUMMER turns to encompass mainly Vinny's life of crime, his association with the Mafia families and mob shenanigans as individual mob bosses scheme to use Vinny to further their power base. We're soon witnesses to beatings and bloody violence, and it's done with no appreciative thought or realistic feeling.

Written like a television show, we're shown scene after scene of shifting points of view with no real insights or inner thoughts from the many characters involved. The racial makeup of Vinny's gang is an improbable politically correct version, seemingly ready-made for modern television. Sidney's supposed Orthodox Judaism only consists of his wearing a yarmulke and going to synagogue once a week.

Brutality is taken as a way of life and there's violence galore in this story with dead bodies everywhere. But there are no real consequences to the violence. Vinny is beaten again and again, hospitalized with slight concussions, sometimes within one single day and he can still function perfectly and look good. The only people in MAFIA SUMMER who are ultimately harmed are the ones who have a bull's eye painted on their foreheads from page one.

Writer E Duke Vincent says this story is based loosely on his life story. I certainly hope so or else he's confessed to theft and murder! MAFIA SUMMER is for fans of mob stories and easy violence. It's not deep thinking and there's no craft to the writing. Slight and not terribly involving, it makes for a good forgettable summertime read.

Reviewed by Sharon Katz, July 2005

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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