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The Savage Heart of Palermo
The Savage Heart of Palermo is a fast paced crime thriller, with dark humour and an upbeat love story. It tells the tale of Joe Kelly, a young Irish-Italian-American, who flees from the States to Palermo, the traditional heartland of the Mafia.
Joe's mother was Sicilian, but she was killed in a botched mugging when he was very young. Coming to Sicily is a way for him to feel close to her and discover a little about who she was.
He is escaping from a troubled past in a poor crime ridden district of Chicago. He has stolen a considerable amount of money from an extremely dangerous pusher and is wanted for questioning by the police in relation to a burglary that he did not commit.
Coming down from drugs and desperate to turn his life around completely, he donates half of this money to charity and uses the rest to set up his new life on what he thinks will be a Mediterranean paradise.
Soon enough, he discovers that Palermo is no easier than the place he ran away from. After almost two decades of relative quiet the Mafia is once again ready to rear its ugly head in Palermo. This new breed of Cosa Nostra is not entirely like the cool calculated one we all remember from the Godfather.
Due to competition from Palermo's immigrant gangs it has been forced to adapt. In order to make its presence felt it has adopted a more gung-ho approach to violence. Joe realizes that he has arrived right in the middle of a new Mafia war, in which two rival crime families fight bitterly for supremacy.
He witnesses a young man shot dead in a public place in front of his girlfriend. But without a stay-permit and wanted for questioning by the police in America he is forced to bite his tongue and remain hidden in the shadows.
Joe knows that he has relatives on his mother's side that live near Palermo. He arranges to meet them for the first time and an attraction is immediately sparked between himself and his second cousin, the young, intelligent, and beautiful Rossella.
He makes friends with Moses, a charismatic African man, who talks him into investing in his small-time hash business. It all starts off harmlessly enough but soon things get out of hand and Joe finds himself involved in things much worse than anything he had run away from.
On top of that, he is falling in love with a woman that he thinks he can't have; Rossella is related to him and she has a boyfriend. Rossella's boyfriend, Francesco Fortunato, is a womanising bully who treats her very badly.
All this is against the backdrop of a beautiful historic city full of contrasts. Palermo has a wild and savage heart. It is also a city subject to change. The influx of immigrants from Bangladesh, Africa, and eastern Europe creates a cultural melting pot that adds an entirely new dimension to a capital steeped in traditional Sicilian culture. This book addresses some of the very real racial issues that Italy faces today.
The Savage Heart of Palermo is a journey that explores a person's desire and struggle to change. It explores the phenomenon of conscience and the real meaning between right and wrong. For Joe, it is a journey of self discovery in which he learns again to feel love and to treasure and protect that which is important in life and to reject that which is detrimental.
The characters, places and events in this book will stay with the reader for a long time.
My double vision is to create awareness through my book, which is fiction based on a lot of fact. I want to help create a better, more cosmopolitan Palermo and tackle some of the real issues that immigrants face here, whilst creating a stronger economy by encouraging people not to pay protection money to the Mafia.
Proceeds go to Addiopizzo (an anti-mafia racketeering organisation) and Santa Chiara Immigration centre in Palermo who help non residents with many things, including asylum, bureaucracy and even free Italian lessons.
Joe's mother was Sicilian, but she was killed in a botched mugging when he was very young. Coming to Sicily is a way for him to feel close to her and discover a little about who she was.
He is escaping from a troubled past in a poor crime ridden district of Chicago. He has stolen a considerable amount of money from an extremely dangerous pusher and is wanted for questioning by the police in relation to a burglary that he did not commit.
Coming down from drugs and desperate to turn his life around completely, he donates half of this money to charity and uses the rest to set up his new life on what he thinks will be a Mediterranean paradise.
Soon enough, he discovers that Palermo is no easier than the place he ran away from. After almost two decades of relative quiet the Mafia is once again ready to rear its ugly head in Palermo. This new breed of Cosa Nostra is not entirely like the cool calculated one we all remember from the Godfather.
Due to competition from Palermo's immigrant gangs it has been forced to adapt. In order to make its presence felt it has adopted a more gung-ho approach to violence. Joe realizes that he has arrived right in the middle of a new Mafia war, in which two rival crime families fight bitterly for supremacy.
He witnesses a young man shot dead in a public place in front of his girlfriend. But without a stay-permit and wanted for questioning by the police in America he is forced to bite his tongue and remain hidden in the shadows.
Joe knows that he has relatives on his mother's side that live near Palermo. He arranges to meet them for the first time and an attraction is immediately sparked between himself and his second cousin, the young, intelligent, and beautiful Rossella.
He makes friends with Moses, a charismatic African man, who talks him into investing in his small-time hash business. It all starts off harmlessly enough but soon things get out of hand and Joe finds himself involved in things much worse than anything he had run away from.
On top of that, he is falling in love with a woman that he thinks he can't have; Rossella is related to him and she has a boyfriend. Rossella's boyfriend, Francesco Fortunato, is a womanising bully who treats her very badly.
All this is against the backdrop of a beautiful historic city full of contrasts. Palermo has a wild and savage heart. It is also a city subject to change. The influx of immigrants from Bangladesh, Africa, and eastern Europe creates a cultural melting pot that adds an entirely new dimension to a capital steeped in traditional Sicilian culture. This book addresses some of the very real racial issues that Italy faces today.
The Savage Heart of Palermo is a journey that explores a person's desire and struggle to change. It explores the phenomenon of conscience and the real meaning between right and wrong. For Joe, it is a journey of self discovery in which he learns again to feel love and to treasure and protect that which is important in life and to reject that which is detrimental.
The characters, places and events in this book will stay with the reader for a long time.
My double vision is to create awareness through my book, which is fiction based on a lot of fact. I want to help create a better, more cosmopolitan Palermo and tackle some of the real issues that immigrants face here, whilst creating a stronger economy by encouraging people not to pay protection money to the Mafia.
Proceeds go to Addiopizzo (an anti-mafia racketeering organisation) and Santa Chiara Immigration centre in Palermo who help non residents with many things, including asylum, bureaucracy and even free Italian lessons.
244 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2012
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52 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
January 28, 2018
Excellent and fast read.
January 1, 2013
Having lived in Naples, Italy, for more than three years, reading The Savage Heart of Palermo by Daniel Kenyon (@dnlkenyon) brought back a lot of memories.
No, Naples isn't Palermo, but Kenyon's vivid descriptions of the sights and smells of an Italian city near the Mediterranean Sea — dank, crumbling buildings within sight of palatial villas, the wet cobblestones around fish markets; narrow, winding and dark streets that sudden open on sun-drenched piazzas; and the people who rely more on extended family and 'other' connections than any government agency — made it as if I was right back in Italy alongside his protagonist, Joe Kelly.
Joe is a drug addict and petty criminal on the run from some dangerous people and the Chicago Police. Desperate for a fresh start, he flees to Palermo, the ancestral home of his mother. Despite knowing no one and having no official papers, Joe settles in and begins to remake his life in a city where opposites — beauty and ugliness, joy and sorrow, hope and despair — exist side-by-side.
Joe arrives at a troubling time for Palermo as two rival Sicilian mob clans have started a gang war over turf, a conflict that Joe finds himself drawn into. More complications: there is also a girl for Joe to fall for, but she isn't far removed from the on-going conflict.
Fast-paced and with a few well-placed twists and turns, The Savage Heart of Palermo was an enjoyable read that the unknowing may dismiss as fiction, but there is more than a small bit of truth in the tale Kenyon tells. The author lives in Palermo and has studied the area and its crime clans, and he has a somewhat checkered past per his blog.
No, Naples isn't Palermo, but Kenyon's vivid descriptions of the sights and smells of an Italian city near the Mediterranean Sea — dank, crumbling buildings within sight of palatial villas, the wet cobblestones around fish markets; narrow, winding and dark streets that sudden open on sun-drenched piazzas; and the people who rely more on extended family and 'other' connections than any government agency — made it as if I was right back in Italy alongside his protagonist, Joe Kelly.
Joe is a drug addict and petty criminal on the run from some dangerous people and the Chicago Police. Desperate for a fresh start, he flees to Palermo, the ancestral home of his mother. Despite knowing no one and having no official papers, Joe settles in and begins to remake his life in a city where opposites — beauty and ugliness, joy and sorrow, hope and despair — exist side-by-side.
Joe arrives at a troubling time for Palermo as two rival Sicilian mob clans have started a gang war over turf, a conflict that Joe finds himself drawn into. More complications: there is also a girl for Joe to fall for, but she isn't far removed from the on-going conflict.
Fast-paced and with a few well-placed twists and turns, The Savage Heart of Palermo was an enjoyable read that the unknowing may dismiss as fiction, but there is more than a small bit of truth in the tale Kenyon tells. The author lives in Palermo and has studied the area and its crime clans, and he has a somewhat checkered past per his blog.
March 13, 2014
I downloaded this because I’ve been to Palermo and it was pushed by the Awesome Gang ebook promo website. The plot deals with American Joe who flees to Sicily with a drug-dealer’s stash of money. He gets mixed up with the mafia and finds himself in the middle of a turf war. So much for a quiet life. The overall style is light and chatty and the author has an original voice that never drops out. The writing reminded me of Elmore Leonard but the story was a little insubstantial in that there was so much scope for real evil but what really bad stuff occurs is somewhat superficial. I thought that it was probably more a Young Adult book where the flawed good guy does everything right for the right reasons and the baddies get what’s coming to them and peace and love triumph.
The presentation is first class with only a few formatting errors. The descriptive writing of Palermo is absolutely spot-on; hardly surprising as the author lives there. The title is a bit misleading as it might indicate a far more gritty storyline. In the event there is a little irony involved but I think I would have given it a different title. Overall, I enjoyed this page-turner; it is the kind of book that you will be tempted to read in a single session, ending up on the final page realizing you are hungry. Recommended.
The presentation is first class with only a few formatting errors. The descriptive writing of Palermo is absolutely spot-on; hardly surprising as the author lives there. The title is a bit misleading as it might indicate a far more gritty storyline. In the event there is a little irony involved but I think I would have given it a different title. Overall, I enjoyed this page-turner; it is the kind of book that you will be tempted to read in a single session, ending up on the final page realizing you are hungry. Recommended.
October 7, 2013
There are few things I like better than a good Mafia story and The Savage Heart of Palermo is a great one. Joe flees his trouble in Chicago only to encounter more in Palermo. The pace of this book was fast and the writing was thrilling. The characters are well defined. The atmosphere is rich. I read this book in one long sitting as I could not walk away from it.
July 21, 2012
Class book, could not put it down. Mind you, had it read in two days. Great novel, fast paced and never a dull moment.
July 21, 2012
Brilliant. Loved every page!
January 17, 2014
This book is totally implausible. However that aside it was a fast paced story about drug dealing and the Italian Mafia.
June 9, 2014
A page turner. Very well written, very enjoyable and an insight into a place that I know well.
June 26, 2014
Really should have read this whilst in Palermo....good story about an American in Sicily mixed up with the mafia. Describes The contrasts of Palermo well.
January 30, 2015
Many aspects of this book ring true
April 5, 2015
so not my type of story... but boy am I glad I gave it a go... fantastic characters, so well written I can imagine what the place looks like x
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews