Dennis Tafoya sets his latest novel, “The Poor Boy’s Game,” in gritty neighborhoods of Philadelphia. His protagonist is U.S. Marshal Frannie Mullen. As the story opens Frannie is involved in a situation that goes terribly wrong. She ends up losing her job.
She is devastated. Things quickly turn from bad to worse. Her father had been a violent enforcer for a Philadelphia roofers’ union that is controlled by mobsters. He has just escaped from prison-now some of his former associates are turning up dead.
Frannie’s former employers at the US Marshals suspect that she had helped him to escape. Frannie loathes her father. She believes he murdered her mother. “The Poor Boy’s Game” churns quickly into bloody confrontations between the police, union thugs, Frannie’s father, and Frannie.
The union thugs want Frannie and her sister to become the bait to lure their father to his doom. This story moves quickly. The action is relentless. The police keep getting in the way. Oh, how it sizzles.
Review by Vick Mickunas for the Cox Ohio newspapers
In this interview Dennis Tafoya explains how he got into the the business of writing crime novels. Short stories he had published on-line got the attention of some people in the film industry. They encouraged Tafoya to finish writing what became his first novel. "The Poor Boy’s Game” is his third book and the first to feature U.S. Marshal Frannie Mullen. He wants to write about her again-this book is the first book in a forthcoming series.
