Black Widow » (Bargain)

During his impressive 40-year career in the business, E. Duke Vincent has written or produced over 2,300 hours of television, including megahits like Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place, and Charmed. Inspired by his New Jersey upbringing and a love for the Godfather films, the TV titan has written his first novel, Mafia Summer.

The acclaimed and endlessly entertaining novel about a Navy pilot, based on real events from the author’s life.

Vinny Vesta, the hero of Mafia Summer, returns as a dashing Navy pilot in Fighter Squadron 176 in the late 1950s, living a glorious bachelor’s life. But a torrid affair with his copilot’s widow, Kat Pennington, pulls him away from his beloved all-night revels—and back into the family business. As Kat’s mafioso father tries to poison her new relationship, Vinny finds himself at the heart of a major Mafia feud. A gripping pageturner that brings to life the decadent fighter pilot lifestyle, old-Hollywood grandeur, and the changing face of the New Y ork Mob, Black Widow is a passionate love story and an unforgettable portrait of an era.

Publishers Weekly

Unbelievable characters and implausible situations undermine Vincent's second novel, set seven years after the events in his debut, Mafia Summer(2005). Lt. Vinny Vesta-Hell's Kitchen gang leader turned maverick fighter pilot-is enjoying the summer of 1957 stationed at the Jacksonville Naval Air Station pursuing the three Fs: fun, flying and fornication. But his hedonistic existence is temporarily sidetracked when a fellow aviator is killed while practicing formation aerobatics over the Atlantic. Ordered to shepherd the remains to the deceased pilot's wife in California, Vesta is shocked when he encounters a redheaded femme fatale, Caitlin Pennington, who, instead of expressing grief for her recently deceased husband, invites Vesta into her bed. After a torrid affair, Vesta begins to feel the wrath of Pennington's overly protective father-the powerful lawyer for a Los Angeles mob boss-who will do anything to keep his daughter's budding Hollywood career on track. Featuring such real-life mob figures as Vito Genovese and Frank Costello in peripheral roles, Vincent's newest isn't so much a down-and-dirty gangland thriller as it is an unlikely love story with crime-fiction underpinnings. (Jan.)