Book Review – Shakedown
Author: Charlie Stella
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Binding: Paperback
Publication Date: 2006
For three months now, ex-bookmaker Bobby G has been heading down the straight and narrow. He’s got the girl and he’s bought the ring. He’s also stashed away a tidy, slightly tainted retirement fund. Then his old boss, a captain with the Vignieri crime family, flips and rats on his Mafioso associates. And Bobby’s past begins catching up with him. Soon the wiseguys’ shakedown is escalating into warfare in the heart of Little Italy.
Bobby G has got trouble.
Hello fellow, potential and future crime fiction readers, I think that an introduction may be in order. I’d like you to meet Charlie Stella. Mr. Stella here is a friend of ours and also happens to be the best-kept secret in crime fiction. His first four novels, Eddies World, Jimmy Bench-Press, Charlie Opera & Cheapskates were published in hard back only and are now, unjustly, out of print. His fifth novel, Shakedown, came out in hard cover last year and just recently became the first of his novels to be released in paperback, something long over due. These novels, coveted by readers and spoken of highly by writers, are some of the most exiting crime novels being written in the new millennium. So, in other words, come on in, the waters fine.
Let me tell you a little bit about Shakedown.
Stella, one of the best dialogue men in the business, honed his skills as an Off-Broadway playwright. The dialogue he writes is realistic and vibrant. It also becomes the vehicle through which a lot of the plot is conveyed. In lesser hands this would come across as info-dumping or false exposition but Stella’s verbal exchanges are never this dull or heavy handed.
Stella would never dream of telling you that something happened, instead he’s much rather show you. He’ll have a character mention something about it in an off-handed manner and leave it for you to pick up on. In this manner the plot is presented in such a way that, at times, it maintains an illusion of being thin. But in fact the opposite is the case and the story line is much deeper and more resonant then that first glimpse might seem. Of all the various subplots in Shakedown perhaps the proof of this can best be found in the all out gang war that takes place? Not once is it ever explicitly stated that a war between the Italian, Chinese and Irish is happening. Instead we are given an insider’s perspective and are told of this through actions and dialogue. We bear witness.
I want to take a closer look at a small piece of dialogue from later on in Shakedown (no spoilers) that acts as a microcosm and shows a lot of the strengths of the book, overall. The exchange is between an old-school Italian mobster and a young member of one of the newer, upstart, Chinese gangs.
“But I need to know you’re not gonna do something stupid with that Irishman you’re holding. Not unless you wanna start a war you can’t finish.”“I get the money, I let the mick go. Not before.”
“Fair enough. Just don’t get stupid. He’s not alone. He’s got friends too.”
“Drunk micks, I know. Zhu said. “I know worry.”
“Yeah, good for you, but I do worry. You’re not the first group to start kidnapping people, my friend. The guy you’re holding, his people perfected it a couple dozen years ago. Don’t think they forgot how.”
It also offers up a real world history lesson. That last part refers to a bit of New York underworld history. The comment refers to such Irish gangsters as Mickey Spillane who held a patent disregard for the Italian mafia’s rules and kidnapped Mafiosi for ransom in the 1960; Jimmy Coonan and Mickey Featherstone who kidnapped and chopped up into pieces associates of the Italian families as retaliation; and Jimmy McBratney who kidnapped members of the Gambino family in the early 1970’s and paid for it with his life. This is exactly the type of off handed comment that would be made by this character, in this environment, in this situation. In the hands of a lesser writer all of this background and subtext would have been explained, and sure it would have been interesting as a history lesson, but the way that Stella just leaves it hang out there as part veiled threat, part secret history lesson, part scolding is much more effective.
In order to successfully tell a story in this manner, from the inside out, the single most important ingredient is strong, interesting, fully developed character. Every single one of Shakedown’s large cast of great characters fit the bill here. It’s the vibrancy of the characters that partially helps to maintain that ruse of a simplistic and thin plot because you get so caught up in their interactions that you might miss that crucial detail.
Over the last 20 years or so in most forms of popular fiction we have seen a trend in storytelling that has veered away from the near Shakespearean heights of the upper echelons of organized crime power structures and has maintained a steady gaze at the more tumultuous existence of the earner, or those in the middle. The character types that permeate the pages of Shakedown and its underworld are all middle management types. They may be possessed of a certain amount of autonomy in their actions but its important to note that they all have someone to answer to. Someone, in fact, quite a few levels higher up then they are. The Irish characters answer to the IRA; the Italian characters answer to the Under boss; the Chinese characters answer to the Tongs.
Reflecting the state of the Italian mafia s it exists today it is shown as an organization on the back side of its existence, plagued with FBI infiltration and those easily willing to break a silence code that hasn’t existed in decades, but still exerting a formidable amount of influence even as it draws its near to last breath. They are to be feared in much the same way that an injured or cornered animal would be. In many ways the Italian Mafia is like the man behind the curtain all the while trying their best to maintain the ruse that they are still the wizard. But, the younger gangs are tougher and more ruthless and are taking more and more of the pie as the immigrant face of the country changes.
On a final and side note there was one character in particular that I really enjoyed — Father John Scavo. Scavo is a former tough guy and car thief who went to the seminary, turned his life around and became a priest. This character type is one of my favorites in fiction and one that we have seen before, what I like to call the urban whiskey priest. A bit of a misnomer perhaps because he doesn’t carry a vice around with him but instead he is of the streets, from the streets and very comfortable in them but he is now a man of the cloth. He therefore has a foot in two worlds. His words and actions have more resonance and carry more weight because of his experience and his faith has been tested. A very interesting character and one that I was glad to see. Pat O’Brien as Father Jerry Connelly from the classic movie Angels With Dirty Faces may very well be the archetype for this character type and as a part of this history Father Scavo doesn’t disappoint
Mr. Stella, I’d like to introduce you to your new audience.
About Brian: Brian loves both kinds of books -- fiction and non-fiction. He is an all around book john and reviewing roustabout.
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