From Publishers Weekly
Playing Boswell to a mafia don leads a small-time reporter into big-time trouble in Shames's third, and not up to par, Key West seriocomic thriller (after Florida Straits and Scavenger Reef). Godfather Vicente Delgatto, 76, has moved to Key West but is no more retired than Meyer Lansky was in Miami. Still, Vincente's bilious past is catching up to him, so he decides to write his autobiography, using as his ghostwriter Arty Magnus, a hack reporter for the Key West Sentinel. Though Vincente's half-Jewish younger son has urged him to write the book, his elder son, the full-Sicilian Gino Delgatto, hates the idea. When Gino, a money-mad egocentric and vulgarian, tries to muscle in on union vigorish in Miami and gets kidnapped by rival mobsters, he saves himself by spilling the secret about his father's book. Soon, ghostwriter Arty finds himself chased by mobsters who plan to kill him as a warning to Vincente to forget the book-and by the FBI, who want Arty's notes in order to nail the mob. Shames's ape-talking thugs and plaster-of-paris wiseguys are engaging on a sitcom level, but this tale, though sometimes quite funny, has neither the richness of word and depth of feeling of an Elmore Leonard nor the inspired wackiness of a Carl Hiaasen. Author tour. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
While Vincent Delgatto, head of the Pugliese family and leader of the New York City Mafia, is vacationing in Florida with his illegitimate son, he looks for something useful to do. Artie Magnus, newspaper editor, needs a project to get him out of a dead-end job. The two come together to collaborate on a book about Delgatto's life and philosophy. The fly in the ointment is Gino Delgatto, the godfather's legitimate son. Gino, a punk and troublemaker, breezes into Key West with a plan guaranteed to upset the balance of power between the ruling families of organized crime. Third-time novelist Shames (e.g., Scavenger Reef, S. & S., 1994) has a good ear for dialect and an even better sense for using a minimum of description to create real people and believable situations. Recommended for all fiction collections.Jo Ann Vicarel, Cleveland Heights-University Heights P.L., OhioCopyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Aging Vincente Delgatto, capo di tutti capo of the New York Mafia, knows that honor is dead and that the feds have the Mob on the run. He's taken on the worst job in the Big Apple. When his wife dies, Vincente goes to Key West for a rest. Pondering life, death, and his relationship with his two very different sons, Vincente decides to collaborate with a Key West journalist on his memoirs. When news of the book gets out, it throws the Mob, the FBI, and everyone around him into a spin. Filled with wonderful characters, clever dialogue, and an almost palpable sense of place--namely Key West and Queens--it has excitement, tension, laughs, pathos, and a loopy, sweet, spirited wisdom. Sunburn is one of those books you just don't want to end. Thomas Gaughan


Detroit Free Press
"Though billed as a thriller, Sunburn will also make you laugh..."


Book Description
When Joey Goldman's illegitimate father, a nefarious godfather from New York, heads to Key West, Joey has the bright idea of letting a Kew West reporter help write his memoirs, a book that no one — the Mafia, the FBI, or the real heir to Delgatto's family business — wants to see published.

ANNOTATION

When aging Mafia godfather Vincente Delgatto heads to Key West to visit his son out-of-wedlock, his biggest worry is sunburn. But it's other people who get burned. Like the Key West reporter who befriends the old man and helps him write his memoirs, a book that absolutely no one wants to see published. And before it's over, no one who touches the godfather is safe.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

When Vincente Delgatto - an aging Mafia godfather - decides to spend some time in Key West with his half-Jewish bastard son Joey Goldman (who is decidedly not in the family business), he thinks that the worst that can happen is he'll get a little too much sun. After all, the only thing he wants is peace and quiet, and some time to recover from the recent loss of his sainted wife. But then Joey introduces the old man to his pal Arty Magnus, a local reporter who has had his fill of covering what passes for crime in this funky community of tourists and refugees. Together, they cook up the idea of collaborating on the godfather's memoirs: the last word on the decline and fall of the mob. But it's not so easy. Just as Arty gets the old man to open up, others hope to shut him down. Word leaks out that the godfather is talking, and all have their own reasons for wanting him stopped - from the FBI to the New York mob to Vincente's own legitimate son Gino, who can't just stand by and watch his family business being given away. But does anyone dare target the godfather? Or do they target the godfather's ghostwriter?

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

When a hack reporter agrees to ghostwrite a mafioso's memoirs, he also makes some powerful enemies in Shames's comic Florida thriller. (Mar.)

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