Headstone City

Piccirilli's novels often take place in fully realized but non-specific locales: a small college in New England or maybe the Northern Midwest; a mid-sized city on the Eastern seaboard; some backwater of the American South.Headstone City, however, is placed firmly in Brooklyn, although in a part of Brooklyn that exists only in the author's imagination. Characters may visit Williamsburg, Bed Stuy, Park Slope, and make trips into Manhattan or out to Montauk, but Melody Park, once home to early stars of the silent screen, is not on any map, nor is Headstone City, the crowded cemetery that anchors the neighborhood. Some of that crowding must be due to the local mobsters who, though reduced to penny-ante status, still regularly off one another.

Johnny Danetello is a product of Headstone City. HIs father was a dirty cop who maybe committed suicide or was maybe murdered. Growing up his best friend was Vinny, the son of the local mob boss, although that ex-best friend wants him dead because of Dane's involuntary involvement with Vinny sister Angie 's fatal OD. Dane has just been released from prison after serving time for running over a particularly obnoxious traffic cop. He may live with his grandmother but he is still plenty tough. Early on he calmly orders pastry at the local bakery although reaching the counter has involved stepping over three dead hit men and ignoring another man, an old acquaintance, bleeding to death at one of the tables.

Dane endures frequent visits from the dead. Angie shows up, as do both his parents, assorted neighborhood characters, and "the boy with the damaged head." Dane can also summon astral spirits for late night rides and conversations. He gained this ability after he and Vinny took a trip through the car windshield while smashing through a police barricade. Ridiculous, right? Don't let it bother you, it all works in the novel. Vinny came through the accident with the ability to shift planes of reality.

As a crime novel, Headstone City is not entirely successful. One plot line seems like filler and the characters are just that, characters. It is a Piccirilli motif, however, to have one real person working his way through a story populated by "types." But at least they are colorful types. Dane's grandmother is a real scene stealer. She has pink hair ("It's magenta!") and gets many of the best lines. After Dane's first encounter with his dead father, she walks into the room, sniffs, and says, "What did you do? Buy a bad salami?"