18. Adrano/For Hire 1 - The Corsican Cross by Michael Bradley

The front cover of this striving for respectability men's adventure novel is a bit of a mess with a photo, an illustration and way too many typefaces.  The back cover, however, is awesome.  Two dudes in a Greek diner smoking!  A guy reading a book!  The guy reading the book is actually a significant moment.  There definitely were several scenes of mafiosi eating, but I don't remember a particularly important one taking place in a restaurant.

It wasn't the back cover that attracted me to the book, but the idea of the young buck advancing his career by shaking up the boring old organization.  I always enjoy corporate politics in crime and the added anti-establishment theme was icing on the cake. Adrano even makes a favourable metaphor with himself and the hippies in one section.  It's clear the author is sympathetic to that movement as well.  I was hoping Adrano's plan would be a bit more intelligent and complex.  It was all a bit preposterous but not insanely so and the execution along the way was quite enjoyable.

Glorious Trash writes a much more thorough review here.  He is much more critical of the protagonist and I don't have a strong argument against his position.  I just personally didn't find him quite so arrogant.