Get married, have a kid-it's not much to ask. Unless you've got to first divorce the mob. And Bobby Genarro only thinks he has, in this brutal, funny new crime novel from Charlie Stella, "who,"says the Chicago Sun-Times, "may just be the best crime writer you've never read."

For three months now, ex-bookmaker Bobby G has been heading down the straight and narrow. He's got the girl-pretty Lin Yao-and he's bought the ring. Then his old boss flips and rats on his Mafioso associates. And before you can say the Mott Street Shadows, the wiseguys'shakedown is escalating into warfare with a Chinese gang in the heart of Little Italy. Bobby G has got trouble.

Charlie Stella, the author of five underworld novels, lives with his wife Anne Marie in New Jersey.

"In this smoothly compact and often funny crime thriller, Stella's fifth novel (after 2005's Cheapskates), New York City's Feast of San Gennaro is only days away when Tommy Agro and John Forzino decide to shake an extra payoff out of Bobby Gennaro, a young ex-mob bookmaker. Determined to distance himself from the wiseguys and keep all the money he's skimmed, Bobby is tough enough for the job but likable enough to appeal to most readers. The grief he gets from his fiance, Lin Yao, is more than understandable, under the circumstances. Stella moves like a king cat through his usual New York — New Jersey Mafia milieu, though as Det. John DeNafria wryly observes, 'Look at what's become of the mob. They're in tatters.' Tommy Agro, with his frequent misspeaking — 'women were always his Italy's heel' — is a special highlight this outing. Fans of the leaner, meaner novels of Elmore Leonard from 20 years ago have great reading waiting in every new Stella. (June)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Charlie Stella's first novel drew favorable comparison with such masters of the crime novel as Mario Puzo and Elmore Leonard, and since then the critics have lauded his emergence as rising talent in the genre. MAFIYA is his sixth novel. Charlie and his wife Ann Marie live in New Jersey.