In the sweltering summer of 1989, sixteen-year-old Cole Callander had the whole world at his fingertips. Armed with a newly minted driver’s license and a borderline road-safe truck, he had the freedom to go anywhere—and he wanted to go everywhere.

So, Cole took a job delivering pies for Paulie’s Pizza, a new joint down the street. It seemed like the perfect way to score some pocket cash, survive the hierarchy of high school, and catch the eye of the strawberry-blonde cheerleader who would hold his heart.

But Cole soon learned that Paulie’s served more than just anchovies and Italian sausages. The secrets T, the owner, held and the characters around the pizza place would define his summer—and his life. That summer, Cole and his fiercely loyal crew would find themselves trading pepperoni and inane banter for erratic wiseguys, cash-stuffed shoeboxes, and deliveries to the seediest parts of 1980s Kansas City. It was a summer of intoxicating freedom and family—until the night that changed everyone’s lives forever.

In Paulie's Pizza, Chris Kamler weaves nostalgic stories of the late 1980's swirling with a mob crime thriller. Kamler is a longtime humor columnist and author, drawing inspiration from the people, places, and memories that shaped his generation.

Paulie's Pizza is his third published book and his debut novel.