I recently reread Paradise Salvage by John Fusco, who wrote the screenplays for Hildago, Young Guns I & II, Crossroads and Thunderheart... And I loved it even more than the first time. A wonderful, very ethnic (mostly Italian) coming-of-age novel set in my hometown in CT. It is a murder-mystery with a lot of love, humor and heart. Anyone driving along I-84 in Waterbury, CT has seen that big cross lit up there on the high hill, Holy Land, where an eccentric old lawyer created amazing folk art when he built a replica of the Holy Land with a lot of wire, papermache, and old donated holy statues. This is where the story starts on a hot summer day in 1979, with a dead body in an abandoned car trunk, a murder that took place almost right under the noses of the nuns, caretakers to the decrepit hilltop. Fusco brings to vivid life the sites, smells, buildings, holy festivals, the drive-in and junkyard, the famous clock tower of old Waterbury, and the people: the promising Italian fellow, youngest mayor ever elected, who was going to rebuild the dying "Brass City of the World." Instead, his goombas ran the city through him and a lot of good people lost their savings, their retirement funds, supporting a new, 'hometown' bank that was going to make everyone comfortable, if not filthy rich. A corrupt ex-cop, a quadriplegic, who helps 12 year old Nunzio, solve the crime, along with his service monkey, and Black taxi-driver, Jonnie, who sings her heart out between chauffeuring folks and investigating this crime. Ah, the memories. A really great read!

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