Charlie Opera: A Novel of Crime

Rating:
Summary: A veritable organized crime soap opera of seamy characters
Review: Charlie Opera by Charlie Stella is a reader engaging crime novel which follows the haphazard events of Charlie Pellecchia, a seemingly ordinary man with the ill fortune to cross paths with a New York mobster, the DEA, the FBI, and the Las Vegas police. A veritable organized crime soap opera of seamy characters and their tangled machinations surrounding one man who dared to break a wiseguy's jaw, Charlie Opera is genuinely gripping, vividly written, and totally exciting reading.

Rating:
Summary: "among the best of underworld thrillers, past and present"
Review: Charlie Pellecchia only did what many a husband would do under the circumstances. When his wife Lisa was groped in a New York nightclub, Charlie hauled off and broke the man's jaw.
What he doesn't know is that the groper is a mobster named Nicky Cuccia, the nephew of a Mafia underboss. Nicky, of course, seeks vengeance, and so when Charlie goes on vacation with Lisa to Las Vegas, the mobster and his minions are close behind.
It's not as if Charlie, recently retired from a high-rise window washing business, doesn't have enough to worry about: He suspects that Lisa, a brilliant and beautiful attorney, is having an affair. To his emotional turmoil is added physical pain when Cuccia's goons beat him up.
Charlie has also drawn the attention of the cops and the DEA, who have their own plans for Cuccia and don't want him interfering. They urge Charlie to leave town but he, mad at the world, isn't about to run. His stubbornness leads to his involvement in a federal sting operation, and puts him in the middle of a crime family feud and in the crosshairs of not one but three assassins.
Combine Mario Puzo and Elmore Leonard, add a dash of George V. Higgins and what do you get? Charlie Stella, that's what. His flamboyant characters, violent action and picturesque dialogue place his work among the best of underworld thrillers, past and present. A word of caution: Not for the faint of heart.
-- San Diego Union Tribune

Rating:
Summary: No doubt about it, Charlie Stella is on his way to the top
Review: Charlie Stella delivers the goods in CHARLIE OPERA. Readers of his previous crime novels, EDDIE'S WORLD and JIMMY BENCH-PRESS, know how good this guy is, and CHARLIE OPERA reads like his break-out book. Its protagonist, Charlie Pellecchia, is a beleaguered Everyman whose vacation to Las Vegas turns into a very dark comedy of errors. The book is a neon-lit trip through a hall of mirrors where betrayal masquerades as honor, ambition as justice, and revenge as redemption. It's up to Charlie to sort it all out and try to find one true thing. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: GRADE A "raucous explosion of a tale" - Rocky Mountain News
Review: Often, aspiring novelists are advised to invent a bunch of characters, put them in situations where they bounce off one another, and keep the action rolling. Charlie Stella excels at this.

Charlie Pellecchia seems to have a cloud following him. He's come to Las Vegas with his wife, Lisa, to see about repairing their marriage. It's not to be, as Lisa is sneaking off for trysts with a lover.

This would seem to be the least of Charlie's problems when he's mugged and beaten, and his wife has a couple of teeth knocked out in another attack. Charlie realizes the attacks are related to an incident that occurred a week earlier, wherein he broke the jaw of a man who'd groped Charlie's wife.

Nicky Cuccia is a mobster on a mission, and taking a couple of Lisa's teeth is only the start of it. Nicky is also about to roll over and turn witness against his uncle, the Don, which is why he has a DEA agent as a chaperone. Preceding Nicky to Vegas on his errand of revenge are a couple of hit men with violent instructions.

Charlie soon has a mélange of nasty characters after him, including a vicious group of Vietnamese gangbangers and the local mob. Compounding his already-precarious position is his falling for an attractive waitress who's the last person Charlie wants to see hurt.

Luckily for Charlie, one of Cuccia's assassins is having second thoughts about his life's work now that he's dying of cancer. Added to the mix is a redneck abusive husband hunting his spouse, a couple of prostitutes with thieving on their agenda, a cop with a cheating wife of his own and a pair of cops trying to figure it all out.

Where all the pieces will land in this raucous explosion of a tale is for the reader to discover. Suffice it to say that when it comes to throwing a group of characters together and spinning the wheel to see what happens, Stella knows exactly where he wants them all to go. The getting there is all the fun.

Peter Mergendahl -- Rocky Mountain News