It breaks my heart to give a poor review to a Laurence Shames book, as he is one of my all-time favorite authors. His “Virgin Heat”, “One Big Joke”, and “Tropical Swap” are true masterpieces, all on my short list of all-time favorites. But somehow Shames was off his game when he wrote this book. The plot is much thinner than his usual plots, and the dialog is not even close to his usual witty banter. And adding to the downer nature of this book is the truly terrible narration of Steve Marvel. He has absolutely no grasp of the personalities. He does a reasonable job with Pineapple, but that’s it. And his rendition of Bert the Shirt is painful to listen to. He has no concept of how this sweetly aging mafia leader speaks. Maybe it’s just that I’ve been spoiled by the excellence of Jem Matzan as a Shames narrator, but I found this reading to be dull and lifeless.