Night of the Furies

by J.M. Taylor

In the late 1930s, Rico DiGiacomo ruled all of East Boston until he was brutally murdered by his own lieutenant, Bricks Mancini. That night, Rico’s son Giorgio overheard the details as they were reported to the one who ordered Rico’s wife. Giorgio vowed to avenge his father, no matter how long it took. Now, thirty years later, Giorgio has finally fulfilled that promise. As Mancini’s bodyguards pursue him into biker bars and sleazy motels like a pack of vengeful demons, Giorgio recalls a life of humiliation at his mother’s hands and the wisdom his father passed on to him. What he doesn’t know is that Fate has still more in store for him, and one night can be very long indeed.

182 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2013

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Pat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review of Night of the Furies by J.M. Taylor

From the first line it’s clear this will not be a story with a happy ending. Satisfying perhaps, but not happy. There’s nothing likable about the narrator, Giorgio DiGiacomo, even before his final act of murder. As a boy he worshipped his father, not seeing how negligent he was a parent. On the other hand, he despises his mother for always nagging her husband and driving him out of the house. The narrator blames her for his father’s absences and when he vanishes for good, blames her for his death.

The narrator tells us he’s killed more than once and it doesn’t seem to matter if it’s friend or foe. If they get in his way, he removes them. Throughout the novel he is driven by one desire—to avenge his father’s murder by killing his mother. Decades in prison don’t dim the need and everything he does is driven by it. More than once he seems to find a life that might have promise but it’s always lost to his obsession. The ending is satisfying with a fitting twist I never saw coming.

Night of the Furies is a dark, fascinating story about a man driven to destruction. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves modern noir.

[Dale · Rating 5 out of 5]

Night of the Furies is a terrific mix of Greek tragedy and hard-boiled pulp noir, and works well to combine it all into a revenge play. As writer Rick Ollerman likes to put it, our protagonist starts out screwed and gets screweder. Georgie is born to a pair of mobbed-up, bitter, Boston psychos, and his life is marked, literally and figuratively, from the get-go. We see a terrible crime, and as Georgie runs from what he's done, we see his messed-up life unfold in flashbacks, horrific scenes of his past crimes. He can't ever get away from his physical location or his past, and he tries to give back as much pain as he gets.
If you like your noir with blazing guns, bleeding bodies, women who love the wrong men, and the men who do them wrong, this is a treat you'll enjoy. Not for the faint of heart or those easily disturbed by excessively bad behavior. There aren't any good guys here, but there are lessons.
It's also a history and geography lesson in old Boston, from the disaster of the Cocoanut Grove fire to the Brinks heist. The city changes, but Georgie doesn't- he's stuck in amber, a relic of a criminal world gone by. Between the Fates and the Furies, Georgie is squeezed hard. It's a rocky journey, but one I enjoyed reading about.

[Ronald Koltnow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Authors have long incorporated classical literature into contemporary novels. In Joe MacBeth, a film-noir, Shakespeare rubbed shoulders with a crime boss. Now, in NIGHT OF THE FURIES, we have The Oresteia transplanted to the mean streets of South Boston. J. M. Taylor knows his mythology, but he also knows his crime fiction too. Outraged by his mother's role in the death of his father, young Giorgio runs away and eventually becomes a crime boss, like his late father. He is driven by vengeance, but Fate has a way of evening scores. Taylor fits a lot of story into this short novel. It's a page turner of the first-rank. As Aeschylus tells us:
And now it goes as it goes
and where it ends is Fate.
And neither by singeing flesh
nor tipping cups of wine
nor shedding burning tears can you
enchant away the rigid Fury.

[Nerdsfeather · Rating 3 out of 5]

Night of the Furies reminds you often that it is a tragedy, a Greek one at that. Though I couldn’t help comparing it to Hamlet. Either way, vengeance directs the play.

Giorgio’s the son of a Boston mob boss, a kid with a bright future. Until his mother “uncle" kill Giorgio’s dad and seize his imperial criminal birthright. Giorgio responds by doing what any Sicilian kid would do: faking his death and devoting himself to avenging his dad’s death.

Published under the pseudonym J.M Taylor, Night of the Furies nonlinearly tells the story of Giorgio’s life, from his initial decision to seek revenge to dealing with the fallout from the killing of his mother and mafia boss stepfather/“uncle.” Part historical novel, part criminal biography, part morality play, Night of the Furies is deceptively complex, though ultimately unsatisfying...

Read the full review at Nerds of a Feather, Flock Together

[Shawn McCarter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bloody, violent, and fun. I enjoy a good revenge story.

[W.J. Whaley · Rating 4 out of 5]

New Pulp Fiction may have another rock star on their hands in J.M. Taylor. Night of the Furies is a bloody encounter with Boston wise guys involving deception and most of all, revenge. Lots of freaking revenge!

Here is the publisher’s synopsis: “In the late 1930s, Rico DiGiacomo ruled all of East Boston until he was brutally murdered by his own lieutenant, Bricks Mancini. That night, Rico’s son Giorgio overheard the details as they were reported to the one who ordered it: Rico’s wife. Giorgio vowed to avenge his father, no matter how long it took.
Now, thirty years later, Giorgio has finally fulfilled that promise. As Mancini’s bodyguards pursue him into biker bars and sleazy motels like a pack of vengeful demons, Giorgio recalls a life of humiliation at his mother’s hands and the wisdom his father passed on to him. What he doesn’t know is that Fate has still more in store for him, and one night can be very long indeed."

I enjoyed this latest release from a publisher who is adding exciting new original crime noir titles to the genre. Taylor does an excellent job of putting a story together that makes you want the protagonist to succeed, but you are okay if he gets whacked too. Literally, I wanted to punch myself in the face at times for cheering on Giorgio. Essentially, the guy’s a dick, but through the backstory you start to understand why.

Also, I think many of you will notice the Clytemestra Greek mythology theme going on in the story as well, where Giorgio, hell bent on avenging his father’s death, will do what it takes for that to become a reality. Many will die in the process as the book reaches its thrilling finale.

In conclusion, this title is a very good addition to the crime noir genre and a great first book for J.M. Taylor. I recommend you give it a shot, no pun intended, and see what you think!

[Derrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed this book, especially as a first outing by a local author from my little home village of Boston. I found the story-telling to be fairly original, for what many would consider well-trod territory in terms of Boston-based novels. The story grabbed my interest and imagination from the beginning and kept me rapt, through the many twists and turns, until the very end. I would note that there is a good deal of violence (not to mention a good bit of "gore" at points) in this tale, merely as a heads up for people who might have problems with that. In this regard, however, I must say that I found most of the violence not to be "gratuitous", but rather to be integral to the tale being told and the advancement of the plot (though there were a couple of exceptions.) While I felt the brisk pacing of the story served it well for the great majority of the book, for me the actual ending felt unexpectedly and unnecessarily rushed, even given the fast pace of the rest of the story. Also, the "resolution" felt to me a bit too "cliche" for what was otherwise a very original story. That having been said, I enjoyed it very much and am looking forward to more from this author, and I definitely recommend this novel, especially for Bostonians or those interested in Boston-based "crime dramas".

[Derrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

New Pulp Press has another winner on the hands. This may be one of their strongest releases, and that says a lot. Taylor offers a great twist on a man seeking retribution against a woman who has done him wrong.
The story alternates between Giorgio on the run for his current crimes and Giorgio retelling the life he has led to get him up to this moment in his life. Both narratives are strong and really help propel the story toward its climax that is great all the way till the last sentence that leaves you wishing the story was not over.
Taylor has created a great noir story. Giorgio was born into a life that gave him little chance of a future and he fulfills that destiny. This story was very satisfying, proving that Taylor has a great future as a writer and that New Pulp Press continues to be the best small market publisher for those who like their books off the beaten path.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dark. Chilling. Definitely not a light and friendly lead and yet Night of the Furies is fascinating and I could not put it down. (Literally, I read it in one day). While you can't like the protagonist, as you journey with him into the darkest part of his psyche and watch him move on a murderous spree of epic proportions, at the same time part of you feels for him and wishes he could find some way out of his own self-destructive spiral. But, as Greek tragedies tend to do, there is no solution for this man until he learns that he cannot escape his fate. I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes modern noir and is intrigued by what ticks behind the minds of criminals.

[ABC Group · Rating 4 out of 5]

New Pulp Press has done it again. Moving away from their earlier more jarring fiction, Night of the Furies is a sign of the new direction NPP is heading. Classic noir and revenge fiction mixed together to produce a decades long novel about a man fixated on exacting revenge against his mother.

I really enjoyed this book and would love it if someone could tell me who JM Taylor really is. It's clear from the back of the book that JM Taylor is a pseudonym, but I really want to read more of his/her fiction.