The Corsican Cross

Adrano For Hire #1: “The Corsican Cross” by Michael Bradley. Johnny Adrano was running numbers for the Mafia by age 14, and before he finished high school he was collecting and enforcing for the mob. His patrone sent him to Harvard for an education and to become a lawyer, but now he was merely a button for Don Carmelo Tirizzi, and going nowhere. Sitting in on a meeting with the New York Dons, they discussed eliminating the New Jersey Don, Samuel Benacci who had cornered the heroin trade. Johnny decides it’s time he made his move and contact Don Benacci with a plan. This was an interesting series to start with. First, we have the Mafia without outside interference, just their own inside network of hoods and killers. Johnny Adrano was patterned somewhat after Johnny Cool, but fails to capture that novel. Most of the story is slow, though when there is action, it is pretty good. Johnny disguises himself as a rare book dealer, which was a neat angle, then travels to Marseille, France where he contacts the Corsicans handling the heroin shipments to America. It was a fun read, just slow in parts.