November Road by Lou Berney #novemberroad @Lou_Berney #kennedyassassination #mafia #love #ontherun #williammorrow #chesapeakepublic library @absltmom

I was a young girl when John Kennedy was assassinated. It was and is one of those times that you will never, forget, always remember where and when you heard of this tragedy, and began to wonder if anything in this country would ever be the same again.

Kennedy’s assassination has often been hinted at as being done by the Mafia. It was well known that he and his brother, Bobby, the attorney general at the time, were despised by the Mafia. Perhaps it is not such a stretch of one’s imagination to believe they had a hand in JFK’s untimely death.

“With every decision we create a new future. We destroy all other futures.”

Frank Guidry, for lack of a better term is a hit man, a man who is controlled by a mob boss named Carlos Marcello, and for Frank, who knows plenty about the assassination of the President, he soon becomes the prey, instead of the predator. Frank knows his days are numbered as he follows his philosophy off don’t stop. Eluding his predator and the tentacles of Carlos Marcello will not be easy. However, Frank, who often quotes the bible and famous books, is smart. He is cunning and when he meets up with a woman, Charlotte, her two daughters, and their dog who are also on the run from an alcoholic husband and a life of dullness, he establishes the perfect cover. Unbeknownst to Charlotte, who Frank is, she accepts his kindness when her car breaks down and she is left with little choice in order to reach California.  Together they set out on an adventure that is both threatening and perilous. Along the way, Frank and Charlotte develop feelings for one another, but can a hit man, a man who has killed when orders came down to do so, be in love and find a relationship with a woman while fleeing from his imminent death?

Told with the backdrop of the assassination, Mr Berney takes us into the underside of organized crime, the wanton killing and a trip through America that could perhaps bring these characters to a place where they will be safe and able to have something they both thought they never would.

and here’s the author…

Lou Berney is the Edgar Award-winning author of November Road (coming October 2018 from William Morrow), The Long and Faraway Gone (2015), Whiplash River (2012), and Gutshot Straight (2010). His short fiction has appeared in publications such as The New Yorker, Ploughshares, the New England Review, and the Pushcart Prize anthology.