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The Rackets

Name: The Rackets
Author: Thomas Kelly
ISBN: 9781453247341

by Thomas Kelly

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Overview

Fired from the mayor’s office, a political flack ends up in his old neighborhood, with a newly dangerous mission
Jimmy Dolan should have known better than to shove Frankie Keefe. Keefe may be scum—a corrupt teamster president who’s looking forward to crushing Jimmy’s father in the next union election—but Jimmy is the mayor’s right hand man, and kowtowing to scum is his job. After hearing one too many cracks about his father, Jimmy shoves the union boss onto the floor, in full view of some of the city’s most powerful people. In a flash, Jimmy’s career is finished. He returns to Inwood, in the wilds of north Manhattan, to pick up the pieces. But when his father is murdered, Jimmy takes up the old man’s campaign against Frankie Keefe. It may be suicide, but he’s got nothing else to lose. After years in City Hall, Jimmy Dolan is about to learn how ugly New York politics can get.

About the Author, Thomas Kelly

Thomas Kelly (b. 1960) is the author of three novels set in New York City. Born in New York, Kelly spent ten years as a construction worker and sandhog—working in the subway tunnels beneath the city—before attending Fordham University and Harvard University, where he received a master’s degree in public administration. Kelly parlayed his experience in union politics into a job as an advance man for the campaign of New York City mayor David Dinkins, an experience which would form the basis for some of his fiction. Kelly began writing in the mid-1990s, and published his debut, Payback, in 1997. A gritty look at the overlap between construction and the Mafia, it was critically acclaimed and adapted to film by David Mamet. Kelly’s other works are The Rackets (2001), which was inspired by Kelly’s experience working for City Hall, and Empire Rising (2005), a historical novel about the construction of the Empire State Building.

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Editorials

Entertainment Weekly

[A] high pitched thriller...it delivers the goods in its gritty details of municipal corruption...

New York Times Book Review

A large, engaging portrait of street-level New York...

Time Out New York

In The Rackets it's testosterone, not tenderness, that rules the day. For better or worse, this is a book with balls.

Publishers Weekly

Written by a former construction worker and Teamster who worked his way through Fordham and Harvard to become "director of advance," a chief aide and troubleshooter for the mayor of New York City, this rugged, straight-shooting novel (following Kelly's well-reviewed debut, Payback) is shaped by intimate firsthand knowledge. Jimmy Dolan, the Director of Advance for the Republican mayor of New York, is fired after his hotheaded exchange with Frankie Keefe the Mafia-connected president of the local Teamsters who is running for reelection against Jimmy's father, Mike makes front-page headlines. Overnight a political pariah, Jimmy seeks refuge among his old friends in a formerly Irish neighborhood on the northern tip of Manhattan. Reunited with his old girlfriend Tara O'Neil, now an NYPD cop, and Liam Brady, an ex-paratrooper construction worker with an active commerce in illegal arms, Jimmy ends up back in construction. On the job, he witnesses the cold-blooded assassination of his father, who is becoming too much of a threat to Keefe. Vowing to avenge the death, Jimmy decides to run in his father's place. His own life and his friends' lives are soon threatened in what is revealed to be an uneven battle: Keefe is an informer, under government protection. Fighting deceit and betrayal, Jimmy prevails against all odds in this damning indictment of the clandestine interplay between big government and the criminal underground. Despite minor lapses into overlong, melodramatic introspection, the suspense holds to the end, and the novel draws readers deep into a gritty, wholly convincing world of late-20th-century union halls and construction sites. (June) Forecast: The chips are stacked in Kelly's favor here. His unusual history should attract plenty of attention, and a feature film of Payback, adapted by David Mamet, is on its way. This is a strong second effort, and a jump in sales may safely be expected. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Kelly's (Payback) latest novel takes place among New York's teamsters unions and Italian, Irish, and Russian mobs. Protagonist Jimmy Dolan worked his way up from construction jobs during college to advisor of a Republican mayor. However, Jimmy's efforts at life among New York's political elite fall apart after fighting local union boss Frankie Keefe at an important political meeting. Now Jimmy is back pouring concrete alongside his gun-running cousin; he also helps the efforts of his father, Mike, to unseat Frankie in an upcoming union election. When a mobster who controls Frankie murders Mike, Jimmy takes up his father's cause. The story introduces a range of working people, corrupt local and federal politicians, gangsters, and Jimmy's supportive policewoman girlfriend. Reader David Daoust is quite good in presenting the tale, but the plot is rather predictable and the characters wooden. Recommended only for larger audio collections. Stephen L. Hupp, West Virginia Univ. at Parkersburg Lib. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.