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Book ReviewsCharlie Opera: A Novel of Crime |
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Book: Charlie Opera: A Novel of Crime
Written by: Charlie Stella |
Publisher: Carroll & Graf Publishers
Average Customer Rating: 5.0 / 5
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A veritable organized crime soap opera of seamy characters
Rating:
5 / 5
Charlie Opera by Charlie Stella is a reader engaging crime novel which follows the haphazard events of Charlie Pellecchia, a seemingly ordinary man with the ill fortune to cross paths with a New York mobster, the DEA, the FBI, and the Las Vegas police. A veritable organized crime soap opera of seamy characters and their tangled machinations surrounding one man who dared to break a wiseguy's jaw, Charlie Opera is genuinely gripping, vividly written, and totally exciting reading.
No doubt about it, Charlie Stella is on his way to the top
Rating:
5 / 5
Charlie Stella IS the next big thing in crime fiction. He hooks you in with dialogue and reels you in with a well-crafted cast of characters that all seem to come together in a fast-paced and twisted plot. What I like most about his style of writing are the short chapters that don't just focus on one situation. It may sound clich? from some of the reviews but Stella is definitely on the level of George V. Higgins. If you have plans before reading this book then break them. Once you pick it up you will not be putting it down. Charlie Opera might put Stella over the top and get him the respect that he deserves.
KIRKUS REVIEW OF CHARLIE OPERA (OCTOBER 1, 2003)
Rating:
5 / 5
Kirkus Reviews
Stella's Goodfellas (Jimmy Bench-Press, 2002, etc.) do their wild and crazy thing once more. All is not harmonious in the Vignieri crime family. Underboss Anthony Cuccia, age 65, is trying to talk his recently made nephew into being sensible. Vendettas are okay, the older and wiser mobster acknowledges, if they don't interfere with business. But Nick has wires in his mouth as the result of a jaw broken by a seriously annoyed husband, and somebody has to pay. What happened was this: Nick attempted to lay claim to a portion of Lisa Pellecchia's anatomy to which he was neither legally nor morally entitled. She slapped him, he shoved her, and Charlie Pellecchia decked him. "He gotta answer for this," Nick intones. Cut from New York to Las Vegas, where opera-loving Charlie and his opera-hating Lisa are vacationing in the hope of repairing rifts in their marriage. Though Nick is indefatigable in his pursuit of vengeance, hit-men just aren't what they used to be, and Charlie proves exceptionally clever besides, good with his hands, and very elusive. Nick's hit-men (think Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in sharp suits) fail, and a variety of second-string killers don't kill any better. Still, this is the mob according to Stella, which means body bags will be piled high sooner or later. Violent, brutal at times, but the pace never slows, and you'll like tough, tenderhearted Charlie a lot.
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