Night of the Furies

At the start of this strong first novel from the pseudonymous Taylor, career criminal Giorgio DiGiacomo shoots his mother and her husband, Peter “Bricks” Mancini (“reputed mob boss of Boston”), in cold blood one summer day in 1967. Giorgio, who sees himself as an avenging Fury, blames his mother and Mancini for the death of his crime-boss father, Rico, decades earlier. As the backstory unfolds, Giorgio passes up opportunities to turn from his doom as he resolutely marches toward a nemesis as inevitable as it is thematically appropriate; his inability to understand what is going on is as essential to his nature as is his ruthlessness and lack of remorse. In flashbacks, Taylor brings to life Boston in the first half of the 20th century (corrupt Mayor James Curley hires fake Ku Klux Klansmen to burn a cross on the Common and threaten to drive him out of Massachusetts in a successful effort to gain voter sympathy), while the classical allusions give this noir gem additional texture. (Nov.)