41 years ago today Sandi and I were married in the same church her parents had been married in many years earlier. She was, and always will be, my everything.
The grief sea is storm tossed with towering waves, as it has been all weekend. I am not fit to be around, so I will do the usual thing, and isolate myself.
Please welcome back author Paula Messina to the blog today. By the way, when I was looking for cover images for the piece today, I cam across this regarding the author and the West End Museum.
The Priest
by Paula Messina
I write historical
fiction. One of my recurring characters and his family live in Boston’s North
End. He occasionally ventures into nearby Scollay Square and the West End.
Hoping to uncover some delectable morsel to use in my writing, I recently
visited the West End Museum.
The museum was
enjoyable, but I didn’t uncover anything I didn’t already know. That is until I
spotted a dark blue, thin volume in one of the display cases, Joseph Caruso’s The
Priest. Published in 1956, both novel and writer were new to me. I left the
museum hoping that The Priest would provide that tasty tidbit I’d been
searching for. I can’t say I found it. Instead, I discovered something far more
rewarding, a gripping novel.
The priest in
question is thirty-eight-year-old Father Octavio Scarpi, the eighth and
youngest surviving son of an Italian fisherman. ‘Tavio is huge, so huge he
cannot fasten his Roman collar. He is not Hollywood handsome, nor is he blessed
with a plain face. A former boxer, fisherman, and World War II soldier, the
priest has a “crooked, broken nose.” He’s an ugly giant whose exceptional
strength is his undoing.
Father Scarpi is
assigned to St. Dominic’s in the West End, where he grew up. He is haunted by
the death of his brother Onofrio and a war-time rape. A priest who hears
confessions and absolves others of their sins, he cannot forgive himself.
The novel begins
as a jury returns to the courtroom with its verdict. Joseph Shannan, a gangster
who unquestionably has earned a place behind bars, is found guilty of the
murder of Ellen Greer. When asked by the judge if he wishes to speak before
sentencing, Shannan tells the judge, “What’s there to say?...I been saying I
didn’t do it.”
Father Scarpi is
called to hear the confession of the dying Vincent Spinale. Grabbing the
priest’s wrist, Spinale begs for absolution after divulging, “I have sinned….I
killed a woman, father….Greer. I killed Ellen Greer. Save me, Father!”
Father Scarpi
grants Spinale absolution as the confessor lapses into a coma. Bound by the
seal of confession, the priest cannot reveal that Vincent Spinale is Ellen
Greer’s murderer. All hope of convincing Spinale to confess to the authorities
is doomed when he dies. Short of a miracle, the for-once-innocent Joseph
Shannan will die in the electric chair.
His lips might be
sealed, but that doesn’t keep Father Scarpi from attempting to right a wrong.
He visits Shannan, whose real name is Peppino Schianno, in prison. Shannan
recognizes ‘Tavio. Peppino and Onofrio were best friends. The meeting stirs
Father Scarpi’s memory of the first time he and Peppino met. An enraged Octavio
“poleaxed” his inebriated brother Onofrio. Their brothers Victor and Anthony as
well as Peppino restrained the massive Octavio as he lifted Onofrio “to hit him
again.”
The priest becomes
obsessed with Shannan and disobeys his superiors in a desperate effort to save
his dead brother’s friend. As he struggles to save Shannan from the electric
chair, Father Scarpi discovers Ellen Greer’s
murder hinged on rape. Ultimately, Octavio Scarpi, who cannot escape his guilt
in Onofrio’s death and the rape he committed during the war, cannot save
Shannan. Devastated by his failure, the priest decides to leave the priesthood.
Caruso doesn’t
sensationalize Father Scarpi’s dilemma. Instead, he depicts a very human,
deeply vulnerable man haunted by his violent past. Father Scarpi has lots of
company. St. Dominic’s other priests suffer from the same affliction as do
others, including Beneditto Scarpi, the priest’s father, who blames himself for
his wife’s early death. These Christians, who all believe God forgives sins,
cannot forgive themselves.
Beneditto tells
Octavio, “There is guilt in all of us, but at times the feeling of guilt is
more than the act that brought it on.”
Because of his
failure to save Shannan, ‘Tavio resoves his Roman collar and leaves the
priesthood. His brother John is unable to convince him to return to St.
Dominic. He tells the priest, “What I am doesn’t matter. It’s you that matters.
You are another man’s hope….Would you deprive your parishioners of their hopes
just for your own feelings of guilt?”
John sees what his
brother Octavio, blinded by guilt, cannot see. Father Scarpi is respected by
his parishioners, who seek and need his comfort and guidance. The priest, who
believes his physical strength is his greatest weakness, fails to recognize his
real strength, his faith.
The Priest
portrays a vibrant community of Sicilians, Southern Italian immigrants, and
their American children in the early 1950s. The men don’t attend Mass, but they
and their wives have a deep faith that guides their lives. The men are “calfoni:
fruit peddlers, laborers, fishermen.” In other words, they are uncivilized
and crude. They may have accents and lack polish, but they live their Old World
values, work hard to support their families, and trust in a God they pretend to
eschew.
There’s another
homicide that hovers unspoken over The Priest: the premeditated murder
in the first degree of the West End by the City of Boston. In the name of urban
renewal, Boston Mayor John Hynes targeted the destruction of the West End and
exiled the calfoni. According to the West End Museum, in 1958 and 1959,
more than 12,000 West Enders were evicted. Forty-six acres were leveled. Like
the Joni Mitchell’s song, “Big Yellow Taxi,” the city tore down a thriving
community to create a parking lot.
That gigantic
parking lot remained until 1965 when two towers with 477 apartments were
erected along with a gigantic sign that proclaims, “If you lived here, you’d be
home now.”
Only the families
that had occupied the land for decades could not go home. They couldn’t afford
the luxury apartments. To this day, former West Enders lament the destruction
of their homes.
Joseph Caruso
(1924-2008) was born in Sicily and immigrated to the West End when he was seven
years old. A writer, filmmaker, and painter who worked as an Art Director for
the Post Office, he received a Bronze Star for bravery during World War II.
Caruso was one of the founders of The Committee to Save the West End.
The families that
lived in the West End couldn’t stop the government, nor could they stop the
inevitable change already underway. The calfoni’s sons and daughters
assimilated and abandoned the Old World ways of their parents and ancestors.
Those who lived in the West End still mourn for the vibrant community that was taken from them. Little of Caruso’s West End remains. One exception is St. Joseph Parish, the novel’s St. Dominic. It is still an active church.
Paula Messina ©2026
Paula Messina writes the Donatello Laguardia stories, which
are set in Boston’s North End during the 1940s. They appeared in the Best
New England Crime Stories 2024 and 2025 and another Donatello Laguardia
short story is scheduled to appear in Black Cat Weekly. She lives near
America’s first public beach.
40 years ago today I married my New England girl. She was and always will be my everything. Being here without her is brutally hard every day. Some days are way harder. It has not gotten any easier as the years pass. At this point, I don’t think it ever will, as it just gets harder every year.
39 years ago today Sandi and I were married in the same church her parents had been married in many years earlier. She was, and always will be, my everything. One would think after going through seven of these deals, I could handle it better. I'm not. Some days are just brutal. This is one of those days.
So what is it
about Boston that so many great crime fiction series are set there? Carlotta
Carlyle encounters lawbreakers while she drives her taxi and Jane Ryland and
Kent Murdock seem to only report on crime scenes. John Francis Cuddy, Spenser, Jeff
DiMarco, Jane Rizzoli, Tom Bethany, Max Bittersohn, and Angela Matelli all
investigate an assortment of felonies in their respective Boston neighborhoods,
while Brady Coyne provides legal legerdemain to Bostonian blue bloods. And
that’s just a few of the mystery and thriller series about the historic city,
which seems to be caught in a permanent crime wave. We can add to the list
Shane Cleary, whose fifth adventure by Gabriel Valjan will be released by Level
Best Books on March 12th.
Jimmy B, a
psychopathic criminal who terrorized South Boston, appeared at Shane’s door,
which boded ill for Shane. Instead, Shane was stunned to learn that Jimmy
wanted him to find his black poodle, which was missing. Shane never figured
Jimmy as an animal lover but since no one says no to Jimmy and lives, Shane agreed
and took some notes.
He barely
ended that interview when Tony Two-Times, one of the Boston Mafia, dropped in
to request assistance for his niece who needs a Latin tutor. Only he wants
Shane’s girlfriend Bonnie to help, as his strict Italian mother will not allow
her granddaughter to interact with men outside the family.
Then Bonnie
wants Shane’s help with a pro bono case in which a young black teenager is
being unfairly charged with felony robbery. Bonnie’s law firm expects her to
plead the young man to whatever sentence she can negotiate and close the case
fast, and she is convinced he is being railroaded.
All in all,
Shane has a lot on his plate. He navigates the racial and ethnic divisions of
the metropolis carefully while coping with career criminals of all stripes and
varying degrees of sanity. Jimmy B in particular is a scary guy with a
surprising empathy when it comes to his dog. Shane himself is a cat person,
which makes him my instant friend.
I found
myself immediately immersed in Shane’s world. The energetic narrative is
flecked with bits of Boston history. With multiple threads and a large cast of
players, it could be easy to lose track of details but Valjan ties each story
line up neatly at the end. His work to exculpate the wrongly accused teenager
was notably slick. The ending sets up a new story arc for Shane’s next books.
Recommended
especially for readers of private investigator series and fans of Boston-based
books.
·
Publisher: Level Best - Historia
(March 12, 2024)
·
Language: English
·
Paperback: 192 pages
·
ISBN-10: 1685125301
·
ISBN-13: 978-1685125301
Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4a1UTXx
Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2024
Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.
This afternoon marks 38 years since Sandi and I got married. I won’t bore you again this year with recounting our history as I married my small-town girl. What she ever saw in me, I have no idea.
I still feel tremendous guilt that I could not save her from the cancer or give her the life she deserved in the years before cancer roared into our lives. I remain convinced that going on
without her was not what was meant to be. We were supposed to grow very old
together, hanging out in our respective chairs, and occasionally visited by
friends and family. Acceptance of the life I now have without her remains very
hard and elusive. The going on is very tough and remains so.
Many told me that after a year, things would get
easier. Not for me. Every day is still like it just happened. The last
few months have been way harder in the endless grief sea. I look for little signs of her, like the
lightning bugs that she so loved, out in the yard, and try to deal as best as I
can.
As numerous people far wiser than me have said--- Tomorrow is never promised. Make damn sure the folks you know and love in your life know how much you love them.
Talking to the urn on the mantle is no way to be.
As Robert B. Parker’s Bye Bye Baby: A Spenser Novel by Ace Atkins begins, it is summer and Spenser’s latest client is a politician. Carolina Garcia-Ramirez is seeking reelection. Her campaign manager, Kyle Rosen, wants Spenser involved to deal with threats. Some folks have made it very clear that they are not going to tolerate her ideas and see her, as a person of color, all that is wrong today. They intend to kill her, among other things.
Kyle Rosen knows
that Attorney Rita Fiore and that got Spenser involved. Now that he is
involved, Spenser intends to make sure nothing happens to the congress person.
He also intends to find out who might be behind the threats. That might include
somebody on staff.
To do this means he is going to need help. Not just from his friends, but his contacts developed in Boston over decades. Meanwhile, the threats keep coming and are increasingly in intensity as the primary gets steadily closer. Carolina Garcia-Ramirez is in a political as well as a real-world dog fight where the stakes are everything-- including her life.
This is the last
Spenser novel, at least for a while, by Ace Atkins and it is another good one.
Complicated and fast moving, the read brings back a number of characters and
references from the recent past and then some. It also serves as another homage
to Boston and everything that made the Spenser series so good.
My reading copy
came from the Dallas Public Library System by way of the Libby/OverDrive App.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2022
36 years ago today Sandi and I made everything proper and
legal like in the same church in Somerville, Massachusetts, that her parents
had wed decades earlier. She was a New England girl, through and through, and I
was a Texas boy that most of her friends and family had no idea what to make of
at all. I did it all, but wear cowboy boots, and most of them were sure I was
not good enough for her. I was not, but not in the way they thought.
What she ever saw in me, I do not know. I can not help but wonder, if she had married another and thus had an easier life as we struggled financially and in so many other ways, if the cancer would have ever reared its head or been terminal. I will never know what might have been. I did everything I could to help her in the battle, but it just was not good enough. The guilt I feel, and, yes, I know it is irrational, over that fact is massive and crushing.
Today is the fourth anniversary without her here telling me what needs to be done and that things will work out because they are meant to be. I remain convinced that going on without her was not what was meant to be. We were supposed to grow very old together, hanging out in our respective chairs, and occasionally visited by friends and family. Acceptance of the reality I live with every damn day remains very hard and elusive.
She was and always will be my everything. Not an hour goes by where I do not think of her. Often more than once. It is hard every single day, but some days are really, really downright brutal.
This is one of those days.
Someone to
Watch Over Me
by Ace Atkins (Putnam, 2021) is the ninth book he’s released in the series about
the iconic private eye Spenser created by Robert B. Parker in 1973.
Spenser has
always been inclined to mentor the youngsters who come his way, Paul Giacomin and Zebulon Sixkill most notably. The latest
is Mattie Sullivan, a former client, who is acting as his trainee while she attends
college classes. Mattie’s new client is a 15-year-old girl who wants to recover
her laptop and backpack which were taken from her after the girl was assaulted
by a much older man in an exclusive Boston club. The teenager is afraid to
report the attack and insists on secrecy. Mattie is enraged after she learns
her client is one of many girls victimized by this wealthy executive and his
friends.
Spenser is
understandably disgusted; he and Hawk become involved in Mattie’s case as the relatively
simple request to recover a laptop and backpack gradually reveals a major sex
trafficking operation that moves girls out of Boston to a private estate in the
Bahamas. Word that Spenser’s nemesis The Gray Man serves as the security lead
for the operation creates flashbacks to their last encounter, from which
Spenser emerged critically wounded.
A significant
subplot deals with the loss of Pearl II and the ways Spenser, Susan Silverman,
and Hawk each react to the replacement puppy.
This story
was clearly written in 2019 at the time Jeffrey Epstein and his colleagues were
making headlines. Current events have provided cases for Spenser before; School
Days (Putnam, 2005) is a notable example. Atkins follows the details of the
depressingly sordid tale so closely that even the physical descriptions of the
characters match the real-life players. The ending however is considerably
different and far more satisfying.
Comparisons
between Atkins’ version of Spenser and that of the series creator are
inevitable. Spenser is not quite the same in Atkins’ hands but then Spenser in
the early Parker books is not the same as Spenser in the last few Parker books
either. Which one is the real Spenser? The differences may lie more in the plot
treatments. For instance, the thread about the puppy seemed unParker-like to
me. It was not the sort of detail I think he would have included.
I was glad to
see a mention of Paul Giacomin, as he has
thus far been missing from the Atkins books, and I wondered where he was. My
very favorite bit though was Spenser saying he has Hank Phillipi Ryan on speed
dial. Ryan is an actual well-known investigative reporter for Boston station WHDH-TV as well as an award-winning
mystery novelist. Inside jokes are always fun. This book is a good thriller and
essential reading for fans of the Spenser canon.
·
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons (January 12, 2021)
·
Language: English
·
Hardcover: 320 pages
·
ISBN-10: 052553685X
·
ISBN-13: 978-0525536857
Aubrey Hamilton ©2021
Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It
projects by day and reads mysteries at night.
Some reading opportunities of interest this week. SMFS list member Mia Dalia announced that her short story, B Minor, was published on...
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