Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Aug 2014
240 pages
Genre: Mysteries
Publication Information
It's Prohibition. It's Philadelphia. And Jersey Leo doesn't fit in.
Jersey is an albino of mixed race. Known as "Snowball" on the street, he tends bar at a speakeasy the locals call the Ink Well. There, he's considered a hero for having saved the life of a young boy. But when his old grade school buddy, Aaron Garvey, calls from death row and asks for one last favor, all hell breaks loose.
Jersey finds himself running from a band of crooked cops, hiding an escaped convict in the Ink Well, and reuniting with his grammar school crush - the now sultry Myra Banks, who has shed a club foot and become a speakeasy siren. Through it all, Jersey tries to safeguard the Ink Well with no help other than his ragtag group of friends: his ex-boxing-champion father, Ernie Leo; the street-savvy Johalis; a dim-witted dockworker named Homer; and the dubious palm reader Madame Curio. With them, Jersey digs for the truth about his friend Aaron Garvey - and winds up discovering a few things about himself.
"Starred Review. Compelling...Florio has an unerring feel for the era and people, and we believe in these characters. Readers will cheer for Leo, a tough guy with a heart of hurt." - Publishers Weekly
"...it is Jersey who makes Blood Moon Alley shine. Unflawed heroes are uninteresting, but Jersey's flaws are as obvious as his "shimmying" eyeballs (a common affliction of albinos) and scorched skin. Even so, Jersey abides." - Booklist
Sugar Pop Moon, 2013), which finds room for several quirky characters in its crannies, is hard-boiled enough to remind readers of Hammett and Chandler." - Kirkus
This information about Blind Moon Alley was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
John Florio is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in print, on the web, and on television. He is the author of Sugar Pop Moon and Blind Moon Alley - the first two Jersey Leo crime novels - and One Punch from the Promised Land: Leon Spinks, Michael Spinks, and the Myth of the Heavyweight Title. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife, Ouisie Shapiro. Visit him at johnfloriowriter.com.
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