02/27/2022
It was 1984, and high-class ho**er and coke addict Diane Hamilton was found murdered with a gold chain attached to a gold boxing glove held tightly in her lifeless hand. She was set to be the surprise witness in an upcoming Mafia trial, but dead people can’t testify.
Professional boxer and limousine driver Johnny Russo, who was the owner of the aforementioned gold chain and gold boxing glove, had his back against the wall. He was being accused of a murder he didn’t commit, and he was being framed, most likely by his uncle Carlo Russo, the head Mafioso in Manhattan’s Little Italy. But the forces against Johnny were so powerful, and since the police were confident he was the killer, he had no choice but to go on the lam and try to find the killer himself.
Johnny had the help of his best friend and attorney Mark Marino, and also of his Aunt Rita, the wife of Johnny’s uncle and the tragic former Heavyweight Champion of the World, Johnny Italiano, for whom Johnny Russo had been named. But that just wasn’t enough, and Johnny was set to take the fall for a crime he didn’t commit.
What happened next was a surprising turn of events ignited by a three-decades-old quadruple murder committed by Carlo Russo and his Luca Brazi-type enforcer - Butch Salerno.
Revenge on Mulberry Street, a novel in which “Rocky” meets “The Godfather,” proves, beyond any doubt, that revenge tastes best when it’s served up cold.
*****
About the author: Joe Bruno was born and raised in Manhattan's Little Italy, and he lived on the Lower East Side for 48 years.
*****Author's note:
The backstory on the history of this book is as follows:
I originally wrote this book in the time-period from 1982-84. It was my first novel and my first full-length book.
My business manager at the time was John “Cha Cha” Ciarcia (RIP) from Mulberry Street (I grew up around the block on the corner of Baxter and White Streets), and through his efforts I was given a three-year option by a movie production company for the movie rights to this book. But alas, the movie was never made and the book, despite the efforts of two different literary agents, was never published.
Disgruntled and disappointed, I threw a box, which contained the paper version of this book, into the closet where it remained for 33 years. In January of this year, I took it out of the closet (the pages were yellowed and the edges were falling apart), and I rewrote it several times. I kept the time period of this book in 1984 (no cell phones to speak of, no Internet, etc…), with flashbacks to 30 years earlier.
People who grew up in and around Little Italy (including the Fourth Ward) will recognized places that are the sites of major scenes important to the book’s narrative. Those include Dave’s Corner (Canal and Broadway), Tony’s Drugstore (Mulberry and Canal), Forlini’s Restaurant, the San Gennaro Feast, Columbus Park, and Knickerbocker Village. In fact, the explosive climax of this book takes place in the parking lot I owned from 1969-1996 at 31-35 Monroe Street across from Knickerbocker Village.
As for the characters, most are based on composites of people I knew in and around Little Italy; the neighborhood I lived in for more than 40 years. Others are based on actual members of my family (my mother was the youngest of 12 children), who lived at 104 Bayard Street, also the site of many important scenes.
The only person whom I knew from Little Italy who is a character in the book is Cha Cha (RIP), whom I gave a cameo in remembrance of our lifelong friendship.
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