Saint of the Narrows Street - Paperback

by William Boyle (Author)

As an Italian American family's decades-old secret begins to unravel, they will have to bear the consequences--and face each other--in this thrilling south Brooklyn-set tragic opera of the highest caliber from crime fiction luminary William Boyle.

William Boyle is the master of Brooklyn-set crime fiction and Saint of the Narrows Street is his magnum opus. For fans of The Sopranos, Jonathan Lethem, and Dennis Lehane.

Gravesend, Brooklyn, 1986: Risa Franzone lives in a ground-floor apartment on Saint of the Narrows Street with her bad-seed husband, Saverio, and their eight-month-old baby, Fabrizio. On the night Risa's younger sister, Giulia, moves in to recover from a bad breakup, a fateful accident occurs: Risa, boiled over with anger and fear, strikes a drunk, erratic Sav with a cast-iron pan, killing him on
the spot.

The sisters are left with a choice: notify the authorities and make a case for self-defense, or bury the man's body and go on with their lives as best they can. In a moment of panic, in the late hours of the night, they call upon Sav's childhood friend--the sweet, loyal Christopher "Chooch" Gardini--to help them, hoping they can trust him to carry a secret like this.

Over the vast expanse of the next eighteen years, life goes on in the working-class Italian neighborhood of Gravesend as Risa, Giulia, Chooch, and eventually Fabrizio grapple with what happened that night. A standout work of character-driven crime fiction from a celebrated author of the form, Saint of the Narrows Street is a searing and richly drawn novel about the choices we make and how they shape our lives.

Author Biography

William Boyle is the author of eight books set in the southern Brooklyn neighborhood where he was born and raised, including his debut, Gravesend; the story collection Death Don't Have No Mercy; The Lonely Witness, nominated for the Hammett Prize; A Friend Is a Gift You Give Yourself, an Amazon Best Book of 2019; City of Margins, a Washington Post Best Thriller and Mystery Book of 2020; and Shoot the Moonlight Out, listed by CrimeReads as one of the ten best noir novels of 2021. He currently lives in Oxford, Mississippi.