The King of West Brooklyn is a crime novel that begins and ends on the mean streets of Gravesend, the toughest neighborhood of New York City's toughest borough. It's a place where organized crime still rules and where wise guys have to think fast, hit hard or get whacked. In between, the novel crosses international boundaries and time zones with the speed of a bullet fired from a gun as West Brooklyn's most accomplished safe and loft burglar takes on a tricky European job in order to pay back the markers held on him by boss of bosses Tony the Pug.
Dominick "Dee" de Venise's textile warehouse has been in the family for generations, but he'll have to torch it for the insurance money. De Venise has no other choice. The Mezzatesta family is into him for boo-koo bucks and if he doesn't pay off, he's history.
The only other option de Venise has is to stage a big-money heist planned by his crooked lawyer friend Arnie, but he's already turned down that particular deal. Arnie's plan is too risky, and besides, de Venise has known Arnie long enough and well enough not to trust him. De Venise doesn't trust anyone to torch the business either. Wanting it done right, he plans to do it himself, then set up an ironclad alibi.
Everything goes like clockwork until the insurance company refuses to pay off on de Venise's policy, leaving him with no business and no money to buy off his wise guy creditors.
With no more cards to play de Venise agrees to do the heist for Arnie. If nothing else, it will get him out of the country, and if de Venise is really lucky and really smart, there's even an outside chance of him scoring the bucks he needs to get him straight with the mob and put him back in action as the King of West Brooklyn.
This is a caper novel to end all caper novels, an addictive page-turner from start to finish, and one of author David Alexander's most ambitious fiction efforts yet.
