First review in for THE CAMELOT CONSPIRACY!

The Camelot Conspiracy
E. Duke Vincent
Kirkus Reviews
May 2011, Overlook

An action novel from veteran TV writer and producer Vincent (Mafia Summer, 2005, etc.) about the Kennedy assassination.

With a cast of Mafia dons, politicians, the CIA, the FBI and a snake's nest of anti- and pro-Castro Cubans, the novel piles conspiracy atop conspiracy. It's 1959, and communist Castro has overthrown Batista. Eisenhower plans an invasion by anti-Castro elements. JFK gives the go-ahead but ruins the plan by seeking "plausible deniability." Next come plots, schemes and covert missions to assassinate Castro: by the Mafia, which wants its Havana casinos back; by anti-Castro elements who want their country back; and by the CIA, which wants a Soviet ally overthrown. Vincent relates the story in dozens of short, one-scene chapters covering everything from the failed Bay of Pigs invasion to the Cuban Missile Crisis. His knowledge of mobsters and bureaucrats, and the ugly underbelly of glitzy places like Las Vegas and Miami, lends an air of believability. The protagonist is Dante Amato, war hero turned mafioso with a CIA agent brother. Amato makes two forays into Cuba attempting to kill Castro, one accompanied by the beautiful Cuban refuge Marissa del Valle, a Bryn Mawr graduate willing to bed Fidel if the assignation presents an opportunity to poison him. Vincent does a fine job of moving the bull’s-eye from Castro to JFK, conjuring up the blood-lust resentment of mobster Sam Giancana, who delivered Chicago for the Kennedy campaign, only to be pursued even more fanatically by Robert Kennedy. Characterizations are generally superficial, with Dante realistically amoral rather than heroic, but the author makes intriguing use of historical characters, including E. Howard Hunt, CIA operative turned Watergate burglar.
Thrillers thrive on a conspiracy burning away like a fuse on a bomb. With this novel, Vincent strikes a fictional match and explodes the supposed cover-ups, machinations and disinformation surrounding the Kennedy assassination.

The Washington Post praises The Collaborator!

Gerald Seymour's novels are all intricately plotted and beautifully detailed--it's why we love publishing them. We were glad to see the Washington Post agree with us this weekend, calling his latest novel, THE COLLABORATOR, "powerful" and adding to their wonderful review that "no summary can suggest its depth and texture."

International suspense fans, take note! Full review below.

'The Collaborator': Taking on a modern-day Italian crime family

By Patrick Anderson
Monday, February 21, 2011; C02

Immacolata Borelli, the quasi-heroine of Gerald Seymour's powerful new novel, is 25, tough, gorgeous and exceedingly spoiled. She's spoiled because she's the beloved daughter of the leaders of one of the most powerful and ruthless crime families in Naples.

When we meet her, however, she's in London, and the family has problems. She's there to babysit her brother, who's living under an assumed name because he faces murder charges in Italy, and also so she can study accounting, the better to help manage the family fortune. Her father, the head of the crime family that his parents started during World War II, is in prison. But, not to worry, Immacolata's mother, who makes Lady Macbeth took like Mary Poppins, is running the family business quite well, with the assistance of an assassin called Il Pistole, who modestly admits, "I have killed more than forty men. I do not know exactly how many men because it is not important to me."

One day, walking in a London park, Immacolata meets a nice young man named Eddie Deacon, a teacher of English, and soon is sharing his bed and fixing him excellent Italian meals. Then she receives word that her best friend back in Italy has died. Knowing no details, she catches the first plane and hurries to the cemetery, expecting to be greeted warmly by her friend's grieving family. Instead, they call her a whore, knock her to the ground, spit on her and furiously explain that their daughter died of leukemia caused by the toxic wastes that Immacolata's family had for years been dumping near their village, a sideline that earned them tens of millions of euros.

Traumatized by her friend's death and this hatred, Immacolata returns to London and reaches a fateful decision: Her family is evil, and she will bring them down by telling all she knows to Italian prosecutors. Her family will disown her, of course, and have her killed if they can penetrate the protection the authorities will give her, but she boldly returns to Italy to send her mother, brothers, grandparents and several of their hired guns to prison.

She leaves London without saying goodbye to Eddie, who has no idea that she's part of a crime family. The poor fool is in love, so naturally he hops a plane to Naples and hastens to the Forcella neighborhood that her family holds in its iron grip. It's a great come-into-my-parlor moment. The family takes him prisoner and sends word to the now-despised Immacolata that, unless she walks away from the prosecutors, they will begin sending her various parts of her lover's body.

By now, several questions have arisen: How much does Immacolata really care about hapless Eddie? Will the prospect of his torture and death, or anything else, dissuade her from her vengeance? If not, will the family find a way to kill her?

That's the plot of the novel, but no summary can suggest its depth and texture. Seymour is not one to cut corners. He does his research, thinks hard about his story and gives us richly imagined novels that bristle with authenticity. Very few thriller writers tell us as much about their characters.

Beyond that, he gives us vividly detailed portraits of the criminal underbelly in Naples, of the operations of a crime family, of how hostages can be rescued, of the corruption of the Italian police - and of the honesty and courage of some police and prosecutors. We see crime families shooting down people in the street, confident that no one will testify against them. We're told of Immacolata's 88-year-old grandmother - who began the family's rise to power by recruiting respectable but starving women to prostitute themselves to GIs in 1943 - "She would have stood in line to slit the throat of Immacolata . . . and would happily have used a blunt knife."

It feels like a realistic portrait of a side of Naples that tourists rarely see - a city a priest calls "the centre of the western world's most successful criminal conspiracy" - and it's not a pretty one. However, Seymour has seen six of his 25 previous novels filmed for television, and to lighten our spirits, he gives us the bittersweet love story of his fearsome Juliet and her naive (but increasingly brave) Romeo. Can the two of them survive in this stupendously violent world? Is there hope for a happily-ever-after ending? You'll have to read the book to find out, and if you enjoy old-fashioned stories that are long on characterizations and short on cuteness, you'll probably enjoy it.

Anderson regularly reviews thrillers and mysteries for The Post.

THE COLLABORATOR

By Gerald Seymour

Overlook. 474 pp. $25.95

For more information about THE COLLABORATOR, check out the news about the book on our website.

A Very Jerry Williams Valentine's Day

We've got a special Valentine-y guest post today from Jerry Williams, who edited (and wrote the introduction for!) IT'S NOT YOU, IT'S ME: THE POETRY OF BREAKUP. If you're looking for a fun activity for this evening that won't involve underwhelming prix-fixe menus and "he went to Jared," stop by KGB Bar (85 E. 4th St., NYC) at 7 p.m. to hear Jerry (with Donna Masini, David Lehman, and Kenneth Hart) wax poetic. Hope to see you there!

Happy Valentines Day, everyone. I was thinking about calling the internet to find out where the apostrophe goes in Valentines, but I’m going to restrain myself. That’s not to say the apostrophe isn’t an incredible piece of punctuation, especially on V-Day, although it does imply possession—e.g. Tim’s television, Shelby’s apartment, Jerry’s old typewriter. No one should own anyone in a relationship. Yes, this seems like a pretty obvious directive, but who among us has not witnessed instances of what I call Interpersonal Colonization: one person lording it over another for reasons known only to the couple? I’ve been waiting years to use this terminology, but I could never find the context—until now, as they say in movie trailers and infomercials. That said, tonight you should attend an anti-V-Day poetry reading triggered by my anthology, It’s Not You, It’s Me: The Poetry of Breakup, featuring David Lehman, Donna Masini, Kenneth Hart, and yours truly. I can’t believe I just wrote that. Yours truly. Who says that? Anyway, the reading is at KGB Bar at 85 E. 4th Street at 7 p.m. Since you’ll probably hear a lot of very negative material about romantic love, I thought I would offer up an Anti-Anti Saint Valentine’s Day (I looked it up) poem that I wrote a couple years ago. Up to that point, rest assured, I was just like you, suffering through one relationship debacle after another—boom! boom! boom! like a relationship blitzkrieg. So here’s that poem. For my wife, Shelby. On Valentine’s Day.

Bed, Bath, and Beyond

Days, maybe weeks, before the first

whole night together,

I ventured down Second Avenue

to buy a new pillowcase for the optional

third pillow, your pillow.

In the past, there had been

a maroon pillowcase

and a navy blue pillowcase

and a bottle-green pillowcase.

One refused to accept bribes;

one pretended to drink holy water;

one took a full-time job crying.

According to the packaging,

your pillowcase is oyster, obliterates

the selfishness of regret,

and looks like a fresh sheet of paper

against your brown skin,

your brown skin that seems

so crucial and complementary

against my white skin

in the warm, reflective dark.

Now that my body feels like a pulpit,

and I am my body's messenger,

I will keep this life.

Jerry Williams teaches creative writing at Marymount Manhattan College. In 2003, Carnegie Mellon University Press published his collection of poems, Casino of the Sun, and a new collection, Admission. His poetry and nonfiction have appeared in American Poetry Review, Tin House, Pleiades, and many other journals. He lives in New York City.

Praise for It's Not You, It's Me


“A fine new anthology…featuring terrific poets…Williams is as good a prose writer as he is a poet. Get hold of this guy’s stuff and read it.” -- Entertainment Weekly

“Jerry Williams, has had some experience with romantic disappointment, as he details in his slightly painful introduction…This collection is split into three sections — ‘One Foot Out the Door,’ ‘In the Middle of the Storm’ and ‘The Aftermath’ — and it gathers many of the poems that have helped Williams (a poet himself, with two books to his name) through his rooms of anguish over the years. Happily, they’re pretty great.” – PaperCuts

“In It's Not You, It's Me: The Poetry of Breakup today's big contemporary poets make breaking up and even divorce sound painfully beautiful. You'll want to read with a box of tissues, a pint of chocolate ice cream and sappy love songs playing in the background.” – Lemondrop

USA Today mentions DELIVERANCE FROM EVIL!

USA Today rounds up the latest witchy novels, including Overlook's DELIVERANCE FROM EVIL, by Frances Hill (March). Go here to see them all!

Did you miss Peter Mayer on Leonard Lopate (WNYC)?

In case you were stuck working at 1:30 this afternoon and missed the great discussion between Lynn Nesbit, Carlo Rotella and Overlook publisher Peter Mayer about TRUE GRIT and Charles Portis, WNYC has helpfully put the interview online!

Listen below or go here to listen to the talk and read a bit of background.

Vote for TRUE GRIT for Slate's audio book club!

Any Winged Elephant readers out there Slate audio book club fans? They pick great books and we can always count on them for excellent discussion (several Overlookers are tuning into the ROOM talk this month). If you've read, or are planning to read, TRUE GRIT and would like to join in their book club, vote for it HERE! (To be fair, the other choices--The Unnamed and Swamplandia--are also really great. But True Grit! Right after awards season! So much to discuss!)

Or if your book club is planning on doing TRUE GRIT, let us know. We've got a reader's guide up and it was already the pick of the Kerri Miller Book Club on Minnesota Public Radio (listen to their absolutely fantastic talk featuring Stanley Fish and Carlo Rotella HERE) so you can check our that discussion as well.

Happy reading and happy bookclubbing!

Booklist praises DELIVERANCE FROM EVIL

We just got in finished copies of Frances Hill's new novel of the Salem witch trials, DELIVERANCE FROM EVIL, and they look absolutely fantastic. Thrilled to see the book getting some pre-publication praise as well! Deliverance from Evil will be on sale March 3.

BOOKLIST
Issue: February 15, 2011
Deliverance from Evil.
Hill, Frances (Author)
Mar 2011. 320 p. Overlook, hardcover, $25.95. (9781590204702).
Historian Hill utilizes her extensive research on the Salem Witch Trials to bone-chilling effect in this riveting tale of a town spiraling out of control. Hill’s four previous nonfiction books documented the infamous witch hunt and its aftermath, enabling her to lend a sense of immediacy and authenticity to the gripping narrative by stocking it with characters ripped directly out of the pages of history. She knows enough about the real-life perpetrators and victims to build a convincing fictional scenario around them.
The tension ratchets up, and the hysteria mounts after what initially begins as an innocent game becomes something much more sinister. As the Salem community loses control of its collective senses, no one, not even innocent clergyman Reverend George Burroughs, is above suspicion. Astute readers will pick up on alarming parallels to be drawn between the past and the present day.

Robert Coover Tribute at AWP Conference in Washington DC

Robert Coover, author of Noir and over twenty other acclaimed works of fiction, will be at the AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) Conference in Washington this week. AWP holds its Annual Conference & Bookfair in a different region of North America in order to celebrate the outstanding authors, teachers, writing programs, literary centers, and small press publishers of that region. The Annual Conference typically features 350 presentations: readings, lectures, panel discussions, and Forums plus hundreds of book signings, receptions, dances, and informal gatherings. The conference will host a tribute to Robert Coover this year, and the full schedule is now available.

Robert Coover has received many prizes for his many novels and short story collections, including the Faulkner Award, the Rhea Lifetime Achievement Award, and a Lannan Foundation Literary Fellowship. At Brown University, he teaches Cave Writing (a writing workshop in immersive virtual reality), and directs the International Writers Project, a freedom-to-write program. Last year, The Overlook Press published its first book by this distinguished author: Noir, a true page-turner - wry, absurd, and desolate - which finds this American master at the top of his form.

New in Paperback: Max Frei's THE STRANGER

Max Frei’s novels have been a literary sensation in Russia since their debut in 1996, and when The Overlook Press published The Stranger last year, American readers were equally thrilled.

Fantasy, horror, philosophy, and dark comedy are all ingredients in this amazing work in which a sharp wit and a bewildering web of clues opens up a Pandora's box of secrets. Max Frei is a twenty-something loser—a big sleeper (during the day, that is—at night he can’t catch a wink), a hardened smoker, and an uncomplicated glutton and loafer. But then he gets lucky. He contacts a parallel world in his dreams, where magic is a daily practice. Once a social outcast, he’s now known in his new world as the “unequalled Sir Max.” He’s a member of the Department of Absolute Order, formed by a species of enchanted secret agents; his job is to solve cases more extravagant and unreal than one could imagine—a journey that will take Max down the winding paths of this strange and unhinged universe.

With The Stranger now available in paperback, Overlook is set to release the second volume in Max Frei's "The Labyrinth of Echo" series, The Stranger's Woes, on June 9.