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dantastic's review against another edition
4.0
Anthony Russo is the stepson of an Atlantic City mobster who desperately wants to get away from the family business despite his stepfather's wishes. To get out, he borrows a lot of money from a loanshark and backs an aging boxer's comeback. Meanwhile, the feds are getting close to the family's operation, led by a local cop affectionately called Pigfucker. Anthony soon learns that the lady wrestler he's begun having an affair with isn't half as sleazy as the world of professional boxing...
I really wanted to dislike this book when I got it in the mail as part of the Hard Case Crime book club. It's got a few strikes against it already. It's bigger than most Hard Cases by fifty pages. The cover is good but not great. It's from a weird time period. Most Hard Cases are pre-1977 or originals just for the club. This one's from 1994. And it isn't written by Lawrence Block or Donald Westlake.
So why do I like it? It's a good story, that's why. Anthony's trapped in a life he can't stand and is feeling desperate. It's not so hard to see why he makes the choices he makes, even though they're the wrong ones. The battle between family loyalty and going legit weighs on him through the whole story. The violence, when it happens, is on the gruesome side and not pretty at all, especially the boxing match at the end. The line "Something's wrong. I can move my jaw with my tongue." immediately comes to mind.
I recommend this to all Hard Case fans, as well as fans of mobster stories and the Sopranos. Michael Imperioli would make a great Anthony Russo.
I really wanted to dislike this book when I got it in the mail as part of the Hard Case Crime book club. It's got a few strikes against it already. It's bigger than most Hard Cases by fifty pages. The cover is good but not great. It's from a weird time period. Most Hard Cases are pre-1977 or originals just for the club. This one's from 1994. And it isn't written by Lawrence Block or Donald Westlake.
So why do I like it? It's a good story, that's why. Anthony's trapped in a life he can't stand and is feeling desperate. It's not so hard to see why he makes the choices he makes, even though they're the wrong ones. The battle between family loyalty and going legit weighs on him through the whole story. The violence, when it happens, is on the gruesome side and not pretty at all, especially the boxing match at the end. The line "Something's wrong. I can move my jaw with my tongue." immediately comes to mind.
I recommend this to all Hard Case fans, as well as fans of mobster stories and the Sopranos. Michael Imperioli would make a great Anthony Russo.
jakewritesbooks's review against another edition
4.0
I collect Hard Case Crime books as a hobby. I love crime novels and I love the simplicity of HCC works: nothing pretentious, just good ol’ fashioned pulp fiction. However, I’m really bad at reading what I collect. I think I take it for granted that these books may be around for awhile and that, unlike most books I purchase, I’m not giving them up. So I only read about two a year in a collection of sixty or so.
One of the great things about library summer reading challenges is how they encourage me to read things in my library that may otherwise be sitting for awhile. When of the challenges said to read a book with “moon” in the title, I figured it was time, at last, to check this one out even though it was relatively low on the list of HCC ones I want to read.
And oh man, what a gem this is.
I don’t know much about Atlantic City. I know that it was a gangster and tourist paradise through the 20s and 30s, went to seed, was resurrected by the casinos, and has apparently gone to seed again. This takes place in the mid-90s, when the casinos were still booming and everyone was having a good time.
Well, everyone except the natives, some of whom worked for the mob. And that’s where our story begins.
This is a good crime novel that functions as a time capsule for a city where the residents can’t seem to get a piece of the fool’s gold everyone else wants. It was at once thrilling (I was glued to the last page), educational, and deep. Blauner cares about his characters and it shows. What starts out as a familiar “escaping the life” tale becomes something more. I was annoyed with all the characters and yet invested in their arcs. All the while, Atlantic City looms in the background as the book’s biggest character.
If you’re interested in checking out the Hard Case Crime series, this is as good of a book to start as any. The theme of many HCC novels is how lowlifes and never-wases get their chance. Tough to see how that can be done better than it is here.
One of the great things about library summer reading challenges is how they encourage me to read things in my library that may otherwise be sitting for awhile. When of the challenges said to read a book with “moon” in the title, I figured it was time, at last, to check this one out even though it was relatively low on the list of HCC ones I want to read.
And oh man, what a gem this is.
I don’t know much about Atlantic City. I know that it was a gangster and tourist paradise through the 20s and 30s, went to seed, was resurrected by the casinos, and has apparently gone to seed again. This takes place in the mid-90s, when the casinos were still booming and everyone was having a good time.
Well, everyone except the natives, some of whom worked for the mob. And that’s where our story begins.
This is a good crime novel that functions as a time capsule for a city where the residents can’t seem to get a piece of the fool’s gold everyone else wants. It was at once thrilling (I was glued to the last page), educational, and deep. Blauner cares about his characters and it shows. What starts out as a familiar “escaping the life” tale becomes something more. I was annoyed with all the characters and yet invested in their arcs. All the while, Atlantic City looms in the background as the book’s biggest character.
If you’re interested in checking out the Hard Case Crime series, this is as good of a book to start as any. The theme of many HCC novels is how lowlifes and never-wases get their chance. Tough to see how that can be done better than it is here.
birdmanseven's review against another edition
4.0
This ended up being a really good book, the style was very atypical to the things I normally like. It deals mostly with a guy born adjacent to the mob who spends his life trying to get away from it. I was hoping the boxing story elements would be a little more prominent, but regardless it was good solid read. It wasn't at all what I expected.
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