Elmore Leonard fans who have not yet discovered Winslow (The Power of the Dog) will be delighted by his fourth thriller with its sympathetic antihero. Frank Machianno, a retired mob hit man known as Frankie Machine as a tribute to his efficiency, has put his past behind him and is living a tranquil life in San Diego running a bait shop and supplying restaurants with linens and seafood. When the son of a local mob boss asks for his backup in resolving a dispute with the Detroit mob, Frank agrees, only to find that he's been set up as the intended victim of a hit. Using his survival skills and street smarts, the executioner follows a trail of bodies to identify which of his past crimes has caught up with him. While the plot is familiar, Winslow has created plausible characters and taut scenes of suspense that will keep readers turning pages. Author tour. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

\rtf1\ansi\deff0Frank Machianno thought he had quit the Mob for good. The 62-year-old Vietnam vet has settled into a quiet life in his native San Diego: operating a bait shack on Ocean Beach Pier, running three other local businesses (all on the up-and-up), and catching a set of waves every chance he gets. But Frank's sharpshooting skills are legendary (he wasn't called "The Machine" for nothing), and when the head of the Los Angeles syndicate calls in a favor, he finds himself back in the game. Turns out Frank was set up, but it's too late to change course; he's already neck-deep in the world of the thick-necked. Winslow, a longtime private investigator, is no stranger to society's underbelly; his past thrillers-- including The Death and Life of Bobby Z 0 (1997) and The Power of the Dog 0 (2005)--vividly evoke the worlds of drugs, dirty politics, and organized crime. Although Winslow visits well-traveled Mafia terrain, his writing has a crisp, cinematic quality that refreshes the subject matter and will appeal to fans of Elmore Leonard (without alienating the Mario Puzo camp). No surprise that film rights have been sold to Robert De Niro; the actor, who earned an Oscar for his performance in The Godfather: Part II0 , is set to produce and star. --Allison Block Copyright 2006 Booklist

Violent scenes from the life of a West Coast wiseguy who's spent his whole life yearning for the simple things. Frank Machianno sells bait and tackle, supplies fish and linens to the restaurant trade and serves as the silent partner in a property-management firm. But although his jobs pay his ex-wife's alimony and keep his high-maintenance girlfriend in comfort, they're not enough to send his daughter Jill to medical school. So he reluctantly accepts $50,000 to provide negotiating authority and backup for the injured parties in a disagreement over the financing of porn videos. When the meeting turns into a setup, Frank's left running from his old pals, wondering who he can trust and who wants him dead. Frank recalls how he worked as a gofer for a mob boss whose wife got caught in a territorial dispute that started with sex and ended with gunfire; how he hooked up with legendary button man Frank Baptista and San Diego capo Mike Rizzo; how he shot his first man and all the others who followed; how his friends warred over control of the sex trade; how he met both President Nixon and a fresh-faced young hooker in the days before they came to grief; how he helped his buddy, FBI agent Dave Hansen, extract a confession from a pedophile kidnapper; and how his marriage came apart as the local crime family unraveled under the pressure of an undercover sting operation. Eventually, one of this series of vigorous, disjointed vignettes, clearly inspired by mob movies from The Godfather to Casino, tells Frank who's on his case. A sprawling, anecdotal saga in which the whole, as usual with Winslow (The Power of the Dog, 2005, etc.), is less than the sum of its parts. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.