Brian M. Wiprud, Sleep With the Fishes

Sleep With the Fishes

Brian M. Wiprud

Dell, October 2006, $6.99, 256 pp.

ISBN 0496243130

Sid Bifulco is a loyal lieutenant in the Palfutti family, with at least ten kills to his credit and a weakness for red shoes. The authorities dropped a mike in his car, recording conversations that could have sent him up the river for life if he didn't make a deal. For a lesser sentence he testified against his former employers, including Johnny Fest, and to preserve his life when he gets out of prison he makes another deal with the rival Camuchi gang, who make sure that any Palfutti thug not in prison won't go after Sid. He also gets a tidy retirement egg.

In jail, he learns the rudiments of fishing, and the warden takes him under his wing and promises him that he will visit him in his new home to go fishing with him. He also arranges that Sid can live out of state and report to a parole officer in Pennsylvania so he won't run into his former comrades. Sid's simple life gets very complicated when Johnny Fest breaks out of prison and goes gunning for Sid. When Sid's neighbor, Russ Smonig runs over Johnny, Sid covers up the crime, but neither man knows that there is a contract out on Russ, or that Sid killed his wife. The convicts know that Sid has a videotape with incriminating evidence against them on it, and want him protected at all costs, but they don't want Russ killed, because they would bring unwanted attention down on Sid.

If an urban noir (in a small town) can be irrelevant, witty and darkly serious at the same time, then SLEEP WITH THE FISHES is that novel. Sid, an anti hero who finds it more dangerous being out of prison and wanting to fish, than his tenure with the mob. The author uses irony in a macabre fashion to have Sid become a friend to a man who has a valid grudge against him. Sid swimming through fish infested waters is loads of fun.