Badfellas
by Tonino Benacquista

[read about the author]

[reviews]

UK: Jan 2010

The story is violent, pacy and full of black humour. Imagine the Soprano family arriving in France, or perhaps better, Ray Liotta, the snitch from ‘Goodfellas’ settling down with his family in a small town in Normandy.

Under cover of darkness, an American family moves into a villa in Cholong-sur-Avre in Normandy. Fred Blake tells everyone he is writing a history of the landings. In fact Blake is Giovanni Manzoni, an ex-Mafia boss who grassed and is now in the FBI Witness Protection Program. Having blown his cover a number of times in the US, the FBI finally sends him to France. Things happen to this thuggish family: a plumber who angers Fred with delays and exorbitant estimates ‘falls down the stairs’ and breaks both arms, the manager of the local supermarket insults Maggie behind her back so that afternoon his supermarket burns down, Warren, the son, starts a gang in his lycée, to intimidate and extort other pupils. A coincidence beyond belief blows Fred’s cover yet again and, with the arrival of the shooters from Newark, he is able to dive back into the violent life of crime he misses so much.

Author Information
Tonino Benacquista, born in France of Italian immigrants, dropped out of film studies to finance his writing career. After being, in turn, a museum night-watchman, a train guard on the Paris-Rome line...

The Translator
Emily Read is a well known translator from French. She has published a number of titles of non-fiction and fiction, including 'The Reckoning' by Georges Simenon.

Praise for Badfellas
'Buy the book. Don't hesitate. Don't even think about it. This is an offer you really should not refuse...' Crime Time

'Savagely funny and surprisingly touching...' Guardian