FROM THE PUBLISHER

A bare-knuckled novel set during a rigged union election in New York City.

With The Rackets — about construction workers and the mobsters who run their union — Thomas Kelly, the most talented urban novelist to come along in a generation, cements his reputation as the heir to James T. Farrell and George V. Higgins.

After putting himself through college by working as a day laborer, Jimmy Dolan goes to work for a smug Republican mayor. When he tries to settle an old dispute with his fists, he finds himself out of a job — and sought out by Frankie Keefe, the corrupt union boss he knocked to the carpet. Jimmy's saintly father is running against Keefe for the presidency of the teamsters, and when he is brutally forced out of the running, Jimmy must risk his life — and that of his estranged girlfriend, Tara, a New York policewoman — to defend the interests of the rank and file.

The novel, set in the union halls, taverns, and half-built skyscrapers of midtown Manhattan, depicts every shade of New York Irish — as well as Italian mobsters, Russian killers, and a gun-running Gulf War veteran on disability. But The Rackets is also a vivid and affecting picture of the gritty uptown neighborhood of Inwood and the lives its residents have made for themselves.

More than any writer working today, Kelly knows how the players in the city gain and maintain their power; from the ups and downs of the working class, he makes literature.

Thomas Kelly worked in construction, graduated from Fordham and Harvard, 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.

FROM THE CRITICS

Entertainment Weekly

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

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.

New York Times Book Review

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

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.

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