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4.01 AVERAGE
4.01 AVERAGE
I don't know, man, sometimes you just need a good mob novel.
Providence, Rhode Island - late 1980s. Irish vs. Italians in a mob war caused by a beautiful woman. This has everything you need in your mob drama: Dirty feds, dirtier money, double-crosses, and mobsters with hearts of gold (you know, except for the crime part).
This is the first in an announced trilogy from Winslow. This was exactly what I wanted from this book and I'll definitely be back for the next two.
Providence, Rhode Island - late 1980s. Irish vs. Italians in a mob war caused by a beautiful woman. This has everything you need in your mob drama: Dirty feds, dirtier money, double-crosses, and mobsters with hearts of gold (you know, except for the crime part).
This is the first in an announced trilogy from Winslow. This was exactly what I wanted from this book and I'll definitely be back for the next two.
I liked this book a lot. I lived in Rhode Island for several years, so some of the places were familiar, but much more important was how the book moved along in s very rapid way with very interesting characters. It is a good story with many interesting twists. Quite engaging.
This book has a lot in common with the [b:The Power of the Dog|206236|The Power of the Dog (Power of the Dog, #1)|Don Winslow|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1467260965l/206236._SY75_.jpg|158974] series by the same author. There are people of various temperaments all trying to navigate through a world of organized crime where intense competition and opportunism severely constrain the viable choices. There's a lot to enjoy in this book: rivalry and alliance, betrayal and loyalty, deception and fidelity, lust and romance, violence and mercy, greed and generosity. All of that would have made this a good book. However, the thing that elevates this book to another level is the fact that it is a retelling of the story of the Trojan War (beyond the scope in the Iliad itself) and is the first in a trilogy that also includes The Aeneid and The Odyssey. Figuring out which character in this book corresponds to which character in those epics and how the plot points in this mirror the key points in the others is a whole extra layer of fun to enjoy.
There is pleasure in seeing Winslow's cleverness in recasting exalted classics with royalty and gods as a gritty small-town gangster story. Winslow does a nice job drawing extensively from his source material without becoming slavishly bound to mirroring every detail. The artistic license is to "never let the truth get in the way of a good story," and in this case Winslow applies this to the "truth" of the original Greek source material. He makes wise decisions about which details to keep, which to adapt, and which to deviate from. This allows the story to make sense and be enjoyed by a reader that has no awareness it is a retelling of the classics while leaving enough faithful echoes to impress and amuse the reader keeping a mental Venn diagram as he reads along.
There is pleasure in seeing Winslow's cleverness in recasting exalted classics with royalty and gods as a gritty small-town gangster story. Winslow does a nice job drawing extensively from his source material without becoming slavishly bound to mirroring every detail. The artistic license is to "never let the truth get in the way of a good story," and in this case Winslow applies this to the "truth" of the original Greek source material. He makes wise decisions about which details to keep, which to adapt, and which to deviate from. This allows the story to make sense and be enjoyed by a reader that has no awareness it is a retelling of the classics while leaving enough faithful echoes to impress and amuse the reader keeping a mental Venn diagram as he reads along.
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Story of Danny Ryan in a 1980s Rhode Island organized crime unit. I pictured him being played by Jeremy Allen from The Bear if this was a series. Decent characters including Danny, who waffles between being decent-hearted and morally corrupt; his father, Marty, who used to run this mob and is now a broken drunk; and John Murphy, the current mob boss. In any event, I didn’t think the narrative was that compelling and won’t read the other books coming out in this planned trilogy.
This could have been really good but it just wasn't. Every character was a caricature and the women were terribly thought out. It's like the author has never actually spoken to a woman before. 2.5 stars, rounded up.
The story of Helen of Troy set in the mid 1980s in Rhode Island. A beautiful women starts a war between two crime families, one Irish and one Italian. The first of a trilogy. Listened to the audio book.
Just a really fun retelling of Greek mythology set in modern times (70-80s). At first I thought it was just okay, but by the end, it gripped me and I could not stop thinking about it. Highly recommended for an easy “page turner”… especially if you’re a Scorsese fan.