Paradise Salvage

About the book

A gripping mystery and an unforgettable tale of a young boy's coming- of-age in an Italian American community, Paradise Salvage is 'that rare thing - a genuine thriller that also warms the heart' [Val McDermid]; Twelve-year-old Nunzio's innocence is lost forever in the summer of 1979. When he opens the boot of a wrecked Pontiac Bonneville in his father's junkyard, his vivid imagination meets a story it couldn't invent. But who will believe he's found a dead body when all the evidence is lost to the Paradise Salvage crusher? In his large, loud Italian-American family, only his brother, De Niro-obsessive Danny Boy, and his father's estranged cousin, quadriplegic ex-cop Angelo, are persuaded. Together with Angelo's trained monkey, they start a search through the darkest, strangest secrets of their small community, and to the core of their own family's loyalty. A gripping mystery, Paradise Salvage is also a wonderfully colourful portrait of a boy's coming-of-age in an Italian-American community. Award-winning screenwriter John Fusco's first novel is a gripping elegy for an age when the evil eye was as real as the local hard men.