Billy Salviati just wants to be a good soldier, to follow orders and live under the radar. It's all going well until he meets Hettie Warshaw one night on a dark street in Hell's Kitchen. Then his life unravels. Saraceno is the story of a hit man whose good looks are equalled only by his gift for friendship. He survives the vicissitudes of good looks, but his gift for friendship puts him in the crosshairs of friends and enemies.

Not many writers about the Mafia listened to the notorious Frank Costello, Vito Genovese, and Joey Adonis drinking marsala and chatting in a kitchen, but Djelloul Marbrook did and celebrates it with a poet’s ear in this haunting tale of redemption.

Saraceno is an electric tone poem straight from a world we only think we know. An heir to George V. Higgins, Marbrook writes dialogue that not only entertains with an intoxicating clickety-clack, but also packs a truth about low-life mob culture The Sopranos only hints at.

—Dan Baum, author of Gun Guys: A Road Trip, Nine Lives: Mystery, Magic, Death & Life in New Orleans, and Smoke & Mirrors: The War on Drugs & the Politics of Failure.

... a good ear for crackling dialogue ... I love Marbrook's crude, raw music of the streets. The notes are authentic and on target …

—Sam Coale, The Providence (RI) Journal

Strongly recommended as a remarkably crafted tale.

—Midwest Book Review

This lyrical and violent, funny and sad, hot and cool novella haunts us. Try it.

—Ann LaFarge, Taconic Weekend