Chicago, twenty years ago: As a result of a suspected affair with the wife of a mob boss, Franco gets his little finger cut off. He's got to never look at her again, not even photos in the paper, and leave town as well. Plus no more high notes.

Fast forward two decades. There's a new guy sitting in with Vinnie's band, a guy with only Nine Fingers, and after he starts showing up, band members start getting murdered one by one. There's a killer on the streets named the Cleaner and it's likely that he's got something to do with the new guy. As the bodies stack higher and the kills come closer and closer to Vinnie, the struggle to survive will become more and more desperate as we find out there's more than there seems to be to both the Cleaner and the nine-fingered musician.

Thom August's Nine Fingers is a great time. The novel is written in first person while following three separate characters; Vinnie, the Cleaner and a washed-up homicide cop named Ken, which allows for a wider range of events to take place. As well, the first person POV always adds a more gritty, visceral feeling to the story, puts you in the middle of the blood-soaked, gunpowder smelling action instead of observing distantly from some sterile third-person narrative. A few wicked twists keeps this one hurtling along to a decent conclusion. Definitely an author to keep an eye on although, with Thom August being a pseudonym, I wouldn't be surprised if we've been keeping an eye on him for a while already; it's rare that an author knocks out a first book this solid.

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Mass Market Paperback: 387 pages
Publisher: Leisure (January 2008)
ISBN-10: 0843960256
ISBN-13: 978-0843960259