In bookstores, at Amazon and B&N on 12/12/12. Also available for Kindle and Nook!
In Brooklyn, before the murders, before the miracle, before the 1940s were gone forever, there was a tree.
If they just let that tree be, then perhaps little Joey Salerno would not have been born like that.
Joey’s father, Sal – just home from World War II – would probably never have gotten involved with the New York underworld.
Mary Salerno wouldn’t have had to spend her entire life caring for an eternal child.
Joey’s brother Peter might have enjoyed a life unburdened by guilt – and he probably wouldn’t have had that gun shoved in his face when he was seventeen.
Many more people might still be breathing. Perhaps nobody would have fallen from that Times Square hotel window on New Year’s Eve.
If only they left that simple tree alone.
There would be no need for the wheelchairs, the walkers, or the hospitals.
No need to run numbers for the Brooklyn mob.
Some would be successful businessmen today, instead of just meals for the creatures of the brine.
That young woman would not have thrown herself from the Brooklyn Bridge during its centennial year.
If that sycamore was just permitted to stand, there would have been no reason, four decades later, for that desperate pilgrimage to Lourdes, France. No need for Pearl Gholston to venture across those tracks, or for anyone to call upon the one known only as The Diabolist.
You are cordially invited into the world of Salvatore Salerno. Experience the richness of a story that spans half a century. Love and hatred. Devotion and betrayal. Murder and miracles.
Sons of the Pope is a new novel, written from the heart. It has come from the heart of Brooklyn.
