Sweeney on the Rocks

February 18, 2019
Ted Sweeney, the protagonist of this fine crime novel from Jones (A Bloom of Bones), has been living a peaceful life in Rockjaw, Mont., having given up his former identity of New York City gangster Cosimo Aniello when he entered the Witness Protection Program. But when he finds a dead mobster in his house, he knows that someone is on to him, and when another body turns up in the tiny town, along with his very-much-alive ex-girlfriend, he knows he’ll have to go back to New York to finish his business. Sweeney’s present-day story intertwines with flashbacks to his childhood, in which an older cousin draws him into working with the mob. Jones does a nice job of showing Sweeney’s ambivalence toward the more violent side of criminal life, while only hinting at the specifics of his adult criminal history, allowing him to remain a heroic lead. The third act contains a few too many coincidences, but this is a minor flaw in an otherwise convincing tale. Readers will hope to see more of Sweeney.

February 15, 2019
Cosmo Aniello, a former Brooklyn gangster hiding out in a witness protection program in Montana, fears his low-key existence as handyman "Ted Sweeney" is cooked when he finds a body with its throat slit seated in his favorite recliner.All things considered, the town of Rockjaw has been pretty good for Sweeney. Though he's divorced from Marilyn, his wife when they were transplanted to Montana, he gets along with her--even though she has become, of all things, a cop. And he entertains thoughts of marrying his girlfriend Aggie, a twice-divorced librarian with apple-pie qualities. Hoping to escape detection, Sweeney deposits the corpse in the river, with Marilyn's tacit understanding. But when his one-time New York flame, Tina, turns up, he knows there will be no escaping his past. His life of crime began at 13, when he and his older cousin Eddie went to work for midlevel Italian Mafioso Jimmy the Nose--"Milton Berle, Dick Clark, George Burns with a rotten apple for a nose." With "wise guys...on the wane," he and Eddie sold themselves to Russian gangsters. The MacGuffin of the book is a 25-carat uncut diamond that a frightening Russian boss wants back. There are times when it's difficult to reconcile Cosmo's street-level origins with his cultural sophistication (as the narrator, he describes Marilyn as "a portrait by Daumier"). But Jones is such a terrific, stylish writer and sustains his comic edge with such seeming ease that it's easy to overlook such factors.Jones (Montana for Kids: The Story of Our State, 2018, etc.) has written a smashing crime novel, adding to his perfectly pitched comic voice with nicely drawn characters and a strong sense of place.

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Starred review from March 1, 2019
Life is good for Ted Sweeney, sole proprietor of the down-at-the-heels Anything for Money handyman business in Rockjaw, Montana?or it would be, if there wasn't a corpse in his favorite easy chair, forcing him to postpone his wedding proposal to salt-of-the-earth Aggie. It turns out that Sweeney is really Cosimo "Shakespeare" Aniello, former Brooklyn wise guy relocated to Big Sky Country courtesy of the FBI's witness-protection program. And, as one body is followed by another, and carloads of Mafiosi prowl the country roads, clearly his cover has been blown. Sweeney's love life is complicated enough already (his ex-wife, Marilyn, is now a local sheriff's deputy), but when his former mistress Tina appears, begging for help, he has no choice but to return to his old stamping grounds?where the people who witnessed his funeral are very surprised to see him. While the rapid-fire narrative is wonderfully voiced and darkly comic, Sweeney/Cosimo is a fascinating, richly developed character, and his slow transformation from a larcenous urban clothes horse to a happy Montana slacker is deftly handled. Think Goodfellas with a screenplay by Donald E. Westlake, set in the landscape of A River Runs through It?a unique and tasty treat for crime-fiction fans.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)