The Price You Pay Book Reviews

The Price You Pay by Jim Fusilli Book Summary

A crime thriller, coming-of-age story and a family saga, The Price You Pay unravels in mid-1970s Jersey City, a crumbling town where violence and coercion reign. Young Mickey Wright is thrust into a world controlled by a powerful Teamster local associated with the Genovese crime syndicate. The man who puts him in jeopardy: his father, a free-wheeling policeman well-known to Jersey City’s politicians and drug dealers.

When a Black trucker is murdered, Mickey is forced to choose between loyalty to family and the Teamsters or to values he shares with Debbie Olsen, the love of his young life who is the daughter of a solidly middle-class family. Memorable appearances by Mickey’s sister, who is broken by her father’s foul will, and memories of their late mother haunt the story. The question of whether Mickey can stand tall, break free and live a worthy life of his choosing isn’t answered until a final, shocking confrontation.

The Price You Pay is rich with vivid details and the kind of propulsive yet compassion storytelling that defines Fusilli’s career as one of today’s most admired mystery writers. As in his novels Narrows Gate and The Mayor of Polk Street, he proves once again that he knows how danger can explode when the mob, police and politics are intertwined. As for Mickey and Debbie, there is a way out. Will they survive to take it?

Critical Acclaim for The Price You Pay:

“Jim Fusilli has done a lot of good writing in his time, but The Price You Pay is his best book. It’s everything you want urban crime fiction to be: taut, seriously suspenseful, closely observed, wry, and very knowing about the way the real world works. I started off admiring the precision of the writing, and then found the pages flying. I was going to say George V. Higgins, the author of The Friends of Eddie Coyle, would have liked this novel. But then again, he might have just been pissed that he didn’t write it himself.” —Peter Blauner, author and screenwriter

“With The Price You Pay, Jim Fusilli gives us a tough and heartfelt coming of age crime story—gritty, suspenseful, involving. The characters pop and ache and burn. Mickey Wright is memorable.” —Meg Gardiner, #1 New York Times bestselling author

Critical Acclaim for Jim Fusilli:

“Superior. This courageous and original writer works against the grain of expectations, looking to make our experience not easy but illuminative and true.” —Boston Globe

“Fusilli writes with poetic intensity.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Fusilli’s a master of his craft, each line brimming with his sense of urban life and nail-biting suspense… His prose is diamond-bright and conjures up a realm you cannot forget.” —Providence Journal

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The Price You Pay (Jim Fusilli) Book Reviews 2024

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