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Title details for Fadeaway Joe by Hugh Lessig - Available

Fadeaway Joe

A Novel

by Hugh Lessig
ebook
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Pursued by labor traffickers, Paula Jessup desperately needs someone in her corner. Her unlikely savior is an aging bouncer with early-onset dementia, grappling with his own ghosts. All they have to do is trust each other.
At first glance, Paula thinks she's found her protector in sixty-four-year-old Joe Pendergast, a famous bouncer in Hampton Roads. Even though he is ancient by her standards - sixty-four years old and counting - he still packs a punch. He's more than a match for the traffickers who want to find her. 
But then she learns Joe has been diagnosed with early-onset dementia. She also discovers he was much more than a bouncer. He worked as an enforcer and collector for a local loan shark for more than forty years. He has been cut loose due to his dementia diagnosis, and now he's plotting to kill his old boss before the disease takes him.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    August 22, 2023

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781639104376

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781639104376
      • File size: 959 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Library Journal

      July 1, 2023

      DEBUT This slow-moving debut catches fire with two unwilling partners desperate to stay alive. Although he spent 40 years working as a bouncer and enforcer for his friend Maxie, Joe Pendergast is fired after a fight with him. Now he runs a food truck, Joe's Takeaway, and has recently learned that he has dementia. After devoting his career to Maxie's enterprises, Joe wants satisfaction. He hatches a scheme to kill Maxie, but he's no longer capable of following his thoughts all the way through. He's saved from a bumbling attempt by Paula Jessup, a young woman with her own problems. Paula knows that her grandfather trafficked undocumented immigrants as laborers. When she rescued one of the girls, her grandfather caught her, and Paula killed him. Now the men who worked with Paula's grandfather are after her, and she needs a place to hide out. Will Joe and his food truck work as a hideaway? It turns out Joe and Paula could be useful to each other. VERDICT Suggest this novel that's not quite a caper to those who read for intriguing characters.--Lesa Holstine

      Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • Booklist

      July 28, 2023
      This debut mystery gives us an antihero with a twist: Joe Pendergast, an aging enforcer for Newport News mob boss Maxie Smith, is fighting the beginnings of dementia. When he's fired from his job at one of Maxie's bars, with the gift of an old food truck as severance, Joe wants revenge. But his encroaching dementia makes it difficult for him to form or execute a plan. Then, Joe meets Paula Jessup, a young detective who also wants revenge on Maxie for operating a labor and sex trafficking operation that exploits migrants and runaways, and the two form a contentious alliance. The pair works to kill Maxie, knowing that Maxie is out to kill them. Their powerlessness against Maxie as they try to take him down makes for solid underdog suspense. The portrayal of Joe, fading away from both the life he's had and his own mind, is wrenching, as is the portrayal of human trafficking. It's challenging to read about Joe as he moves in and out of lucidity, but well worth the effort.

      COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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