Chop Shop

When former mob doctor Frank Goode provides an abortion to Simone Pescatelli, the niece of the head of the Pescatelli crime family, it sets off a chain of unexpected and deadly events in this cinematic but overblown crime drama. Frank saves the life of Vasily, the heir to the Petrosky mob syndicate, but then Simone kills Vasily and Frank finds himself at the center of a potential war between the Pescatellis and Petroskys. Things only get worse when Amber Hawthorne and Jolene Morris, two down-on-their-luck morticians, agree to dispose of the body for Frank and deliver the parts to Rhino, a mysterious figure connected to the body harvesting trade. While the prose is richly descriptive, the story relies too heavily on stereotypes of European-American crime families. Racial and ethnic slurs abound, and the characters are poorly fleshed out caricatures. A twist that’s meant to shock mostly frustrates. Post’s skill with a sentence can’t compensate for the novel’s many flaws.[em] (June) [/em]