THE LAST HITMAN

5 stars out of 5

I follow the “Youngstown Mob” on Facebook (yes, it’s a real thing). I’ve been to every single town mentioned in this book, most of them many times (in fact, I lived in one of them for 50 years). Many of my friends claim to have a grandma who makes the best spaghetti sauce in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia put together. To say I enjoyed the heck out of this book, then, would be an understatement – the goings-on ring true even though some of the names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent.

This is the self-told story of Angelo Cipriani, a high-school dropout from the Ohio Valley who ended up finding a job in the powerful Fortuna Crime Family. Although his non-full-blooded Italian heritage prohibited him from becoming a “made” man within the mafia (well, at least for many years), he was always loyal to the core. The family boss, “Big Tommy,” loved him like a brother, and Big Tommy’s son (Little Tommy, of course) called him Uncle Ange. One fine day, Angelo was told that his loyalty had overcome DNA and he would be accepted in the inner circle as a made man. And then he got instructions on what, exactly, he needed to do to make that happen.

But time has a way of changing things, and that includes the mob landscape (I’m not sure what the most recent suspected mob-related murder was in Youngstown, Ohio – a few stones’ throws from my home – but I do recall one in 1991 in particular that remains unsolved to this day). Angelo’s “nephew” Little Tommy is in charge now, and he’s taken his troops into areas of crime his late father once railed against. And now, Angelo has become about as worthless as a screen door on a submarine. Amid his feelings of stress, anxiety and betrayal, who should appear but a friendly neighborhood FBI agent – one who wants Angelo to rat on his compadres in exchange for Witness Protection.

So what’s an aging, maybe even not long for this world but still loyal to the core mob guy to do? That’s the issue Angelo faces, and he takes readers on an up-close-and-personal (and often chuckle-evoking) journey through time as he struggles with his final decision. For me, it was a highly entertaining journey, and I heartily thank the publisher, via NetGalley, for allowing me to ride the bus by way of a pre-release copy. Eccellente!

The Last Hitman by Robin Yocum (Crooked Lane Books, December 2006); 331 pp.

THREE DREAMERS

5 stars out of 5

As a die-hard fan of mystery/thriller/detective books, I admit I'd never, ever have picked it on my own. It is, after all, a memoir about three women who played major roles in the author's life: His grandmother, his mother and his wife - nope, definitely not my thing. But having read and absolutely loved two of the author's books featuring NYPD cop "Tank" Rizzo, I just didn't have the heart to say no when the publisher offered me a pre-release copy of this one to read and review. Oh why not, I said to myself - it's short.

Now I've finished - and that there wasn't more is the pity. What an eloquent yet simply written tribute to three very different women - with memories and heartfelt emotions pouring off every page from happy to sad to downright chilling. And as I read, the words triggered the same emotions in me; I chuckled, I got angry and yes, I teared up. But don't confuse emotional with sappy; this is a straightforward, honest report, if you will, on who these women were and how the person the author is today came to be because of, or in spite of, having them in his life.

In many ways, the three women couldn't be more different; Nonna Marie, a lifelong resident of an island just off the coast of Italy, is everything we non-Italians envision an Italian grandmother would be. Forgiving and unforgiving depending on the circumstances, her love for the author - who visited during many summers as a young boy - was boundless. Her stories of life during World War II were both raw and inspirational.

Contrast that with his mother, Raffaela, who did and said things to her son (in concert with and apart from her husband) that no child ever should be subjected to. Herself a victim of abuse, she didn't hesitate to make her son a whipping boy and blame him for her plight; yet throughout it all he knows that, in her way, she loved him. Admittedly, this was hard for me to read - as it was, I have no doubt, difficult for the author to write.

Last but hardly least is his wife of three decades, Susan. They met when she was a successful editor and he a struggling but up-and-coming writer; they stuck together through thick and thin until she died of lung cancer in 2013. Clearly, she was the love of his life - and the most important champion, in my mind, at least, of his becoming the successful writer that he is. Returning full circle by bringing his and Susan's children to his grandmother's grave after their mother died, he says, provided the inspiration for writing this book. To be sure, it's a special one - and in my opinion, he did all three women up proud (as, in their own ways, they did for him). A wonderful and inspirational book I highly recommend.

Three Dreamers by Lorenzo Carcaterra (Ballantine Books, April 2021); 240 pp.

EDUCATED

5 stars out of 5

Did I love this book? Not even close; mesmerizing but horrified seems to be the best description as I try to compose my review. Generally speaking, it's a memoir written by a woman who grew up in remote Idaho with Mormon survivalist parents who kept their entire family isolated; she was 17 before she ever entered a formal classroom, and by the time she wrote the book, she'd been to such esteemed universities as Harvard and Cambridge and earned a Ph.D.

When I started the book - a recommendation from a journalist friend - I figured I'd be able to identify, at least somewhat. I've known a couple of folks who I'd call "survivalist" sympathizers; while they lived and worked in my real world, they espoused hatred of all things government, considered the Second Amendment a directive from God and spoke, mostly in hushed tones, of the many groups in remote parts of the country who are hunkering down, locked and loaded, waiting for the world to self-destruct.

Besides that, I can relate to not wanting to live the life of your parents; like the author, I was eager to "escape" a traditional future like that of my mother and father - okay for them, perhaps, but not what I envisioned for myself. And like her, no matter how far I've gone from home I've never escaped those down-home country roots (nor do I want to; rather, I'm quite proud of them). Like the author, I loved my parents dearly, and I always knew they loved me. But unlike her, never once did they try to dictate what I did, where my life took me or what I believed. And for the love of Heaven, never would they have harmed me mentally or physically (well, there was one time my Dad gave me a whopping knot on the head with his bat when he was the hitter and I the catcher in a farmyard baseball game, but there's no question that it was an accident even if my mother never quite forgave him for it).

So what the author lived through growing up - and I can think of no other way to describe it than as a living hell - is unimaginable to me, just as is her reluctance to leave once and for all. Or at least, it was until I read what she's written and came to at least some understanding of how she was - and to a certain extent still is - torn between loyalty and love for some pretty unlovable people and her need to reach her full potential, whatever that might be. Some parts of her story actually make sense given her parents' beliefs, such as making the kids learn Morse Code to ensure that they all could communicate "if the lines are cut." And having watched business owners bite their fingernails to the quick back in late December 1999, I understand her father's obsession with the Y2K thing (but perhaps not his despondence when nothing happened; after all, those business owners were pretty darned happy).

Other parts, though, remain almost unbelievable to me - in particular, some of the gruesome injuries that happened to her and other members of her family, none of which were treated by conventional medicine. But her remembrances were fact-checked by editors; and even if some aren't spot-on accurate, they're close enough to give me chills. All told, it's quite a story, and one that made a considerable impression on me. Highly  recommended.

Educated by Tara Westover (Random House, February 2018); 336 pp.