Johnny Porno by Charlie Stella

by Charlie Stella
(Fords, NJ USA)

It’s the summer of 1973. Disco is King and the New York mob is at the peak of its power. John Albano, an out-of-work construction worker with child support and rent payments he can’t keep up with, is driving for a local car service when his quick hands and honorable nature place him in the middle of a perfect storm of danger. He’s just trying to make ends meet with a weekend stint counting heads and collecting the take at illegal screenings of the recently banned porno film, Deep Throat, for Mafioso Eddie Vento. But a devious ex-wife, her more devious ex-husband, the wiseguys behind the film (including one obnoxious wannabe with a frenzied beef for Albano), the Fleetwood Eldorado used in the opening scene of the porno film and a host of cops (both good and bad—including the deranged one Albano punched out) snowball into an often humorous, sometimes violent, action-packed page turner loaded with the masterful dialogue that earned Charlie Stella six *starred* reviews and countless comparisons to such masters of the genre as George V. Higgins, Donald Westlake, Elmore Leonard and Mario Puzo over the course of his six contemporary crime novels.