Tell Red it was nothing personal. Just business.

Taking his daughter to see where the Starlight Club used to be, he reminisces for the very first time about who and what he'd seen there half a century before, in Queens in the early 1960s. The club had been a centre of business for Red, and those closest to him in a mob fami!y business. There is a strange mixture of friendship, almost love, and violence, used, when necessary, in the furtherance of business, namely making money or keeping true to their own code. The characters are all colourful but feel very real, human, in a very male oriented world and although several stories are told, the centre around Trenchie, a made man, who has just been released from a ten year prison sentence for something he had not done, but was covering for his boss.

This was a wonderful book. Well written, it escorts the reader around the area, meeting people, some of whom are actual historical characters, following some weird incidents, even going to Hollywood. There is a lot of action but very little of the violence one might expect from a gangster book. No, the joy comes in actually getting to know these people, almost like being a frequent attended at the Club itself. The narration by Christopher Strong was a perfect fit. His voice is nicely articulated, well paced and steady. It has a definite noir feel tumbling from the reading. And he also voices each character with individual attention. It is an unhurried reading - not slow - which adds to a feeling of time and place. A fine performance.

I have only recently noticed that other titles have been written in this series although the original intention was that it would be a single, stand alone story. Wonderful. I look forward to reconnecting with these strange, ruthless but somehow rather amiable people.

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