By Josh Stallings
288 pages
( Heist Publishing; October
30, 2015)
ISBN-10: 0996948007
ISBN-13: 978-0996948005
The estimable Josh
Stallings has pulled off something remarkable in his newest crime novel, Young
Americans: he has managed to write a story set solidly in the mid 1970s
that is utterly tone perfect. The language spoken by the characters, the
set-up, the settings and not least of all, the music: all exactly right for the
period.
On top of that, it is a
delightful read.
This is the story of a
skilled thief and safe cracker, Sam, and her Mensa-level little brother Jacob. Sam was brought up to a life of crime by her
father and grand dad. She can use a set of picks to open any deadbolt in under
two minutes. When she graduates to safes under the tutelage of her gramps, she
can crack a four pin model inside three.
Jacob is a typical
sophisticated kid of the seventies. He is slated for enrollment in a good
quality college, smokes a little dope, plays around with his equally bright
chums and adores his older sister.
Sam split the Bay Area
for Seattle sometime before the action begins. When she ran out of money on her
way to the north she ended up a dancer in a Humboldt County strip bar, “Rapunzel’s.”
The joint caters to a rough crew and a
few adventurous students from the college up the Interstate. It also serves as
a front for drug sales and prostitution. Its owner, a dubious fellow named
Breeze, is a sleaze ready to stab a friend in the back if there is profit in
it.
And he does, trust me.
The action of the book
centers on a double cross by Breeze that forces Sam to rob a San Francisco
disco owned by a made Mafia member.
There are crosses and double crosses – even a triple cross by my count –
as Sam struggles to satisfy her former boss while keeping her family –
including her brother – alive.
In addition to a
gripping account of the heist, the book features a pair of Breeze’s half-witted
associates who spell trouble for the young Americans, a gay bodyguard and leg
breaker who is as big as a horse, a couple of near misses by assassins and an
undercover DEA agent who is almost as bent as the actual crooks.
I’m here to tell you
that the story is completely authentic. I’ve spent some time in the Cannabis
Crescent of Northern California and Stallings is dead-bang about the twisted
relationship between hillbilly dealers and the dope trade in the 1970s.
 |
| Author Josh Stallings |
I also polished
adjectives for Bay Area newspapers during the time in which the story takes
place and Stallings has the Bay Area down pat. He does a splendid job of
recreating the atmosphere of that period, the drug scene, even the music featured
by local venues. Example: the robbers plan their heist for a night when
Sylvester and the Hot Band are scheduled to play at the Mafioso’s disco-night
club. Few people today know anything about Sylvester – the openly gay singer
who emerged from the gender-fuck cast of The Cockettes to become a disco
superstar – but Stallings remembers.
One element of the book
is the disbelief among the major characters that a Mafia member would run a
nightclub that caters to homosexuals, let alone be queer himself.
Young Americans can be
so naïve!
One of the first
investigative stories I did for the San Francisco Chronicle was a look
into a nightclub, Studio West, that was constantly being busted for drug
trafficking. When I back-tracked the club’s records, I discovered it was owned
by Henry and Carmine Vara, two alleged members of the Patriarca crime family in
New England. A third partner, Frank Cashman, was suspected of burning down a
rival’s club in Atlanta, though investigators from that city’s arson division could
not find enough solid evidence to win his
indictment.
Young Americans is
definitely a two thumbs up for me. Stallings not only tells a story that will
have the reader biting his or her nails, but he does it so smoothly that his
audience stops looking for anachronisms after about three pages because they simply
can’t be found.
This is a fine book. Give it a read – you won’t be sorry.
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