Gangsterland

How funny is Tod Goldberg's new novel, Gansterland?  A laugh a page funny.
A book about a gangster who is relocated from Chicago to Las Vegas and given a new identity as a Rabbi!!

This is a really fun summer read.  Sal Cupertine is a legendary hit man with the Chicago Mafia Family. He is the best at getting in and out of a crime scene without a trace.  Then in a job gone wrong he kills three FBI agents and leaves behind evidence to link him to the crime.  His cousin Ronnie sells him to a Las Vegas gang to make him disappear.  He undergoes some reconstructive surgery and resurfaces as Rabbi David Cohen.

As Rabbi Cohen studies to Talmud and Torah so he can minister to the congregants at Temple Beth Israel, former FBI agent Jeffrey Hopper is on the trail of Sal Cupertine.   This is a fun book that shows the dark side of the Mafia in a funny light.  Describes murder, then describes the Jewish thoughts on death, all in a light manner.  Tod Goldberg says in an interview, "I knew I wanted it to be a mordantly funny book, but I also knew I wanted to deal with serious issues, and to strike that balance was hard, because if you do either one poorly, the other one feels gratuitous."

I think Goldberg has hit the mark, he has used a topic that is real, the Mafia in Las Vegas, Chicago and other major cities and he has made it funny.  Rabbi David Cohen is finding his way in his new life, "It didn't matter to David what Ruben was paid.  He just wanted to know how Bennie was keeping him quiet and what David would need to do if he wanted to keep him quiet..."  He continues to work both as a hit man and a Rabbi, "It dawned on David then that he wouldn't just be presiding over the funerals of the war dead, that he might not know one body to the next who was a natural death verses a murder."

This is definitely a fun book to read and really got me thinking about the Jewish players in the history of the mob.  I will be doing some more reading about this topic.  Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel and many others, Tod Goldberg has whet my curiosity about this topic.