Thomas Kelly
Hardback
Weidenfeld & Nicholson
(2003) |
 |
The Rackets
Jimmy Dolan, onetime roughneck construction worker, is now an Ivy League-educated advance man for New York City’s mayor. When he strikes out against a corrupt union boss at a power breakfast, he is fired. Meanwhile, Jimmy’s father is running for president of the Teamsters. He is brutally muscled out of the race, so Jimmy must risk his life and return to the working-class world he left behind.
Set in the union halls, taverns and half-built skyscrapers of Manhattan, populated by Irish racketeers, Italian mobsters and Russian killers, The Rackets is a fast-paced literary thriller that paints a vivid portrait of an urban underworld rarely seen in fiction.
`A well-paced, violent thriller and an elegy for the city’s old Irish working class’ New York Times
`The Rackets is the kind of authentic New York novel that will live with you awhile’
Frank McCourt
'Urban, dynamic, political and intensely heartfelt' Colum McCann
'A large, engaging portrait of street-level New York…' New York Times Book Review
''[A] high pitched thriller… it delivers the goods in its gritty details of municipal corruption…' Entertainment Weekly
'In The Rackets it's testosterone, not tenderness, that rules the day. For better or worse, this is a book with balls' Time Out New York
'A rattling good read' Kirkus Reviews
About The Author
Thomas Kelly worked for ten years in construction, graduated from Fordham University and Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, then served as Director of Advance for the mayor of New York. A former Teamster, he writes for Esquire. His first novel, Payback, has been adapted by David Mamet for a feature film. He lives in New York and Dublin.
Bibliography
N.B. dates and publishers in dark red indicate British First Editions. Dates and publishers in black indicate recent reprints.
The Rackets
(Weidenfeld & Nicholson,
2003)
Oct 03
Payback
The Rackets
by Thomas Kelly
