The Winter of Frankie Machine
by Don Winslow
2006 / 320 pages
read by Dennis Boutsikaris 9h 12m
rating B / crime
Why would anyone want Frank Machianno, a bait-shop owner in San Diego, dead? He’s a nice guy – runs a complex bunch of small businesses, is good to his ex-wife and daughter, great to his girlfriend.
But he hasn’t always been what he is now- his past includes having been a surf-bum and hit man, two usually unrelated occupations, but now the past has come knocking. It seems Frankie still owes a favor – somewhere. Okay, so he goes to the meeting to help Mouse Junior, the son of the Boss, but it turns out to be a set-up because what’s really going down is that someone apparently wants Frankie dead. But he survives the ambush, trashes his gun and tries to figure out who … amongst the many, many wise-guys with grievances against him – the list of possibilities 30 years long and full of all sorts of interesting characters, casino owners and high-rollers, street thugs, Detroit and Chicago mobsters, politicians, punks, strippers, cops, …
This is a fun listen – a bit over-the-top with the violence but with a very likable protagonist. Good light stuff between more serious fiction. It’s the second book by Don Winslow I’ve read, the first was A Cool Breeze on the Underground (rating B+) and I was going to make sure to read another back then – why did it take me so long?
