![]() What he tries not to think about is Milena Cossutta, the beautiful, smart and sexy wife of a hot-head mob lieutenant. Jimmy vaguely remembers how it was decades earlier – a walk on a beach, steak dinner, sunlight. ![]() The story then moves back 25 years, using the past tense, to tell why he was sent away and how he has become legendary for adhering to omerta, the Mafia code of silence. Cool, reserved 58-year-old Jimmy Piccini is about to be released from federal prison. The going back and forth, past and present. The narrative proceeds as alternating time zone chapters, beginning in 2006 in the present tense. What’s more, Schneider shows he can not only do blunt action prose, but such lyrically evocative descriptions – medieval houses and streets, people, wine and food – that he could easily be accused of being a shill for Sicily’s tourist industry. Yes, there’s violence, but there’s also a love story here, that’s not only believable but heartwarming. In “Lowdown” Schneider delivers an absorbing tale about a guy whose crime family has real-life connections to the Gambinos and John Gotti. And they’re not, in Anthony Schneider’s new novel, “Lowdown.” They’re Mafia, but as “The Godfather” and Tony Soprano proved, complex goodfellas can fascinate. And I’ve got one for you, if “good” means almost non-stop reading because you care about the main characters, even if they’re not good. It’s cold, still dark early, a time, as the cliché has it, to curl up with a good book. ![]()
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