Finished: "Johnny Porno" by Charlie Stella

Finished: Johnny Porno by Charlie Stella, 2010, 9781933586298.

Another good job by Stella. Multiple characters and storylines all joining together at the end. Stella is good at pacing the story among the different characters and increasing that for the climax at the end.

1973, New York. John Albano lost his union carpenter job and is struggling to make his rent, pay his child support, and put gas in his car. John takes job with the mob to drop off film reels of Deep Throat on Fridays and pick them up receipts on Sundays. Albano's selfish ex-wife, Nancy, is cheating on her third husband with he first husband, Louis. Louis is a gambling addict who owes money to all sorts of bad people. Louis plans to rob the receipts off Albano with Nancy's help. Other characters include a couple cops, a dirty cop, a couple mob guys, Louis college aged girlfriend, a fat loan shark, an FBI agent, an FBI informant, and others. Pay attention when reading to get the full effect.

Comments:
1. Dialogue written as spoken. That took a few pages for me to adjust to.
2. Intricate plot with multiple interconnections between the storylines.
3. Humor found in the interactions of the characters. Some scenes could be played as slapstick.
4. Main character like many of Stella's other characters as, "Stubborn to the point of suicidal."
5. Common Stella themes: low level mob guys chafing at the bullshit of people above them, mob bosses who only care for the cash but pretend otherwise, low level mob guys struggling with cash and family issues, an incredibly selfish female character I - as the reader - am disgusted by, cops following clues in effort to catch-up.
6. Period car love.
7. All-in-all another good book by Stella. Hopefully this one will get the attention it deserves.
8. Now I feel like I'm sucking up to Stella because I know he'll read this. I'm not. It's a real good book.