The Old Turk's Load

By: Gregory Gibson

Narrated by: R.C. Bray

Angelo DiNoto is the most powerful crime lord in New Jersey, his empire sustained by pure heroin from the poppies of an old Turkish farmer. That is, until a $5 million dollar shipment goes missing.

Richard Mundi, a shady developer, sees the lost heroin as capital infusion for his failing business. His daughter, Gloria, literally in bed with would-be revolutionaries, thinks it's her ticket out. "Mailman", a long-time postal clerk dying of cancer, believes finding the heroin would be perfect ending to a failed life. Add in punch-drunk P.I. Kelly, hired by Mundi to tail Gloria; Kelly’s young protégé; two brothers working as DiNoto’s enforcers; and a conflicted collections agent, and you have an Elmore Leonard-esque cast of characters running rampant - until all threads lead to an unforgettable showdown over the old Turk’s load.

©2013 Gregory Gibson. Recorded by arrangement with Mysterious Press, an imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc. (P)2013 HighBridge Company

Critic reviews

"This well-handled caper novel recalls the late great Donald Westlake. Readers will want to see more crime, and more comedy, from Gibson." ( Publishers Weekly)

Very quick organised crime story

Gibson's novels is a enjoyable story set in 1960's New York, following a number of people as they all try to find or deal with a large shipment of drugs. The opening of the book drops you right in the middle, with two street thugs transporting the drugs being accidentally caught in the middle of the 1967 Newark Riots. The drugs then go missing. We then, in rapid succession, get introduced to a ensemble of characters all of whom shall get pulled into the story due to the missing drugs.

Gibson moves the story along at a rapid pace, which keeps it interesting. The story interweaves the different characters paths well, ensuring that it is difficult to work out where the story is going next.

My biggest issues is that due to the volume of chracters and the shortness of the story that I didnt really felt I knew or cared about the characters that much. I was interested to know where it ended and how it was resolved but did'nt overly care about which characters came out on top.

Bray does good voice work here. He differentiates the characters enough to make it obvious that different people are talking etc. The main thing he does really well is put emotion into the reading. Angry people sound angry, sarcastic sounds sarcastic, sad sounds sad. etc. I really enjoyed the effort and feeling put into the reading.

Meh

It was a little hard to keep up with and the antagonists and protagonists were hard to identify! Seems like everyone was pretty terrible! I didn’t enjoy this book very much at all but soldiered through it