Gangster Nation

July 10, 2017
Offbeat doesn’t begin to describe Goldberg’s impressive sequel to 2014’s Gangsterland. Mafia leader Sal Cupertine escaped arrest by hiding in the back of a refrigerated meat truck after murdering three undercover FBI agents and an informant in Chicago. Now, he’s successfully reinvented himself as Rabbi David Cohen in Las Vegas, where he’s found that not being Jewish “had ceased, over time, to be a problem.” He has successfully faked his way into the job, officiating over life cycle events and dispensing nuggets of wisdom. Goldberg’s sections on Cupertine/Cohen’s relationship with his wealthy flock, which includes a man who hires Donny Osmond to sign autographs at his daughter’s wedding, provide a satirical look at the superficial aspects of affluent American life. The threat that the gangster’s past will catch up with him comes in the form of FBI agent Matthew Drew, who’s bent on avenging his late colleagues. Fans of clever mixes of dark humor and violent crime by authors such as Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiaasen will be pleased. Author tour. Agent: Jennie Dunham, Dunham Literary.

July 1, 2017
The jig may be up for Las Vegas Rabbi David Cohen, the unlikely identity assumed by ruthless hit man Sal Cupertine. It's only a matter of time before an obsessed former FBI agent tracks him down--or the fake rabbi's cosmetically altered face caves in.Set in 2001, two years after the events of Goldberg's audacious Gangsterland (2014), this sequel finds 40-ish Sal/David weary of the Jewish mob wars in Vegas and missing his family. He left his wife, Jennifer, and 7-year-old son, William, in Chicago more than three years ago after murdering three undercover FBI agents and escaping town in a refrigerated meat truck. He plans on somehow rejoining his loved ones after having recorrective facial surgery, but those plans are complicated by his mob boss cousin Ronnie's own face problems. The ex-FBI man, whose former partner was one of the Sal's victims, takes out his anger by bashing in Ronnie's brains. Hidden away in a Windy City rehabilitation center named after Ronnie for his donations ("The only legit thing here was the pain," muses Jennifer, the toughest of cookies), the attackee hangs by a thread. How long will it be before Sal/David pays a similar price? Boasting less outlandish humor than Gangsterland but far more ambition, the sequel conducts extended discussions on how America is defined by crime, boldly linking gangland violence to the 9/11 attacks. The author overdoes it a bit with the not-a-rabbi's religious pontifications, but the second time around, Sal/David's mixing of Talmudic citations with Bruce Springsteen lyrics is still very funny. The sacred gets the stuffing kicked out of it by the profane in this wild and sometimes-shocking novel.

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September 1, 2017
In the sequel to 2014's Gangsterland, fugitive Mob boss Sal Cupertine is living a (relatively) peaceful life in Las Vegas under the assumed identity of Rabbi David Cohen. He's slowly amassing enough money to move to South America, where he plans to resume his criminal ways in a less-dangerous environment. Meanwhile, disgraced former FBI agent Matthew Drew is hell-bent on finding Cupertine and exacting revenge for the Mob man's murder of three of Drew's former colleagues; and Peaches Pocotillo, a Mob fix-it guy, is negotiating a sweet deal with Sal's cousin Ronnie. Set a couple of years after Gangsterland, Goldberg's new novel is every bit as entertaining and at least as quirky as its predecessornot an out-and-out comedy but certainly lighter than most books featuring organized-crime figures and crazed law enforcers (although there are moments of memorable darkness). The book can be read as an installment in a series or as a stand-alone; Goldberg provides enough background to allow newbies to pick up the important plot threads.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)