FRESH KILLS

You've got to hand it to narrator Gary Wilmes. He loads protagonist John Sanders, Jr., with enough resentment for all of Staten Island, where Junior resides, and enough left over to cover one or two more boroughs for good measure. Not that Sanders hasn't earned the chip on his shoulder, what with growing up as punching bag to a lout of a father whose murder outside a deli begins this novel. That murder impels Junior to confront what a lifetime of stored venom threatens to cost him. It’s probably far easier to bear this character’s seething anger through the written page than through hearing minute after minute of acid pouring forth from Wilmes. In other words, this is a letter-perfect reading. M.O. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine [Published: DECEMBER 2008]