Murder at Venegoni's by Mr. Christopher M. Rutledge / Review by G. Robert Frazier
Murder at Venegoni’s
By Mr. Christopher M. Rutledge
CreateSpace
$13.99
ISBN 978-1537377957
Published 9/23/2016
Book of the Day
Alright, youse guys, listen up. There’s this book about mobsters, see… Murder at Venegoni’s. Written by some wiseguy screenwriter by the name of Christopher M. Rutledge. It’s like The Godfather--you know, that magnum opus of the Family Corleone by that Puzo guy. Now, it ain’t as long as Puzo’s book, so don’t get your panties in a wad. You can probably read Murder in one sitting, but it’s got just as much action as The Godfather, if not more. I mean, right from the start the bullets are flying and the bodies are dropping like flies. It’s like an endless slice of mob-on-mob violence. Dark and brutal. There’s even a couple of molls and a corrupt cop plotting double-crosses. Only thing missing is all that ruminatin’ that characters do. You know, the inner thinking and musing stuff. There’s some of it, yeah, but if that’s the kind of read you’re looking for, fuhgeddaboutit! Rutledge ain’t got time for that. There’s too many shootouts to get through to be wasting on a bunch of mushy character stuff. Anyways, it’s a book about these two mob families from the old country, see. The Venegoni's and the Graziano's. They’ve been warring since the early 1800s. Started with some dispute over a winery fire and the bad blood’s continued to this day, all the way to the Windy City. And after 200 years of feudin’, it’s all reached a boiling point. So’s the Graziano's put a hit on the Venegoni's and take out their don in a hail-o-bullets. That puts Joseph next in line to lead the Venegoni's. Along with his somewhat psycho brother, Michael, he vows revenge and the war is back on in a big way. And before you know it, one hit follows another and the bodies start piling up.
You get the idea. Salute!
When he’s not working on his own novel or screenplays, G. Robert Frazier writes about other writers and their works on his blog and other sites such as BookPage and US Review of Books. He is a script reader for both the Austin Film Festival and Nashville Film Festival screenwriting competitions and is a member of the Tennessee Screenwriting Association. He used to write and edit stories for several newspapers in the Nashville area until the industry caved in on itself and set him free. And he once won a flash fiction contest in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, so there’s that.