Fiction: This is a bit of a mish-mash of a book, packaged like a thriller and with a publicity release suggesting maybe even a crime novel, it turns out to be neither. Which is a shame as there is a blockbuster story inside, screaming to be told, writes Paul Carson
Apparently, in 1980, over a long, hot weekend, The Depositor's Trust Bank in Boston was robbed. The criminal gang involved included a police captain, one Gerald Clemente, and his account would have made much more interesting reading than the long-winded account of how a small publishing firm tries to buy the exclusive rights to his tale.
The opening 50 pages irritate, mainly because the first 15 are very good but the tale quickly peters out into a litany of characters and their backgrounds so that I had to flick back repeatedly to identify Harry and Shirley, Latrelli and Bucky, Alex and Clemente and many others. Indeed, in the first one hundred pages there is too much narrative, broken only occasionally with dialogue. More editing might have helped.
So instead of a thriller or crime novel, where the action develops and moves along at a rapid pace, The Rizzoli Contract seems stuck in a groove of Boston and district with very little happening. There are excellent scenes set in the city's restaurants and bars with banter about football teams (but countless mentions of the Red Sox soon leave the reader weary; ditto 60 Minutes, a major US network investigative program). Where the author does introduce dialogue of any length the novel splutters into life and his ear for the local dialect seems spot on. But this still fails to rescue the book. I put it down so many times and only lifted it again with a heavy heart. Not a good sign in any thriller-crime fiction début.
The author knows this tale inside out as he was commissioned to ghost-write the story of Gerald Clemente and the Depositor's Trust Bank Robbery, and for six months (I'm quoting from the press release) immersed himself in a world of crime, betrayal, corrupt Irish cops and political favour trading at the highest level. The drama of it all, however, failed to rub off. Tales of corruption and crime and political malpractice do make for engrossing reading. But this story of a small Boston publishing company trying to break it into the big time by persuading one of the main crooks to sell his story is not a runner. With respect, publishing contracts are of interest only to authors, publishers and their separate accountants. Boston may be a very interesting city with plenty of lowlives and police corruption but it takes a helluva lot more than the stealing of the police graduation examination papers to grip the imagination.
The publisher's press release states, "If you like The Sopranos, if you enjoyed Gangs of New York, you're going to love The Rizzoli Contract".
This is always a dangerous ploy as it can backfire. Some of this book has the language of The Sopranos, but not the menace. I could find no association, now matter how tenuous, with Gangs of New York.
Maybe the last line of the blurb on the cover is more accurate: "The Rizzoli Contract is as fast moving, varied and colourful as Boston itself, that quintessentially Irish-American city".
And that's the truth. It's half guidebook, half the author's take on the city's culture, political and social scene. It lacks menace, drama and movement, which is a pity as it is written with some style. Kevin Stevens may well go on to write a blockbuster, but this is not it.
Paul Carson is a medical doctor and novelist. His latest medical thriller, Final Duty, is now out in paperback.
The Rizzoli Contract. By Kevin Stevens, Town House Pocketbooks, 342pp, €9.99