In the fraught summer of 2022, a sexual harassment scandal shatters the fragile bonds of a tight-knit group of suburban New Jersey lawyers, their loyalties and marriages unraveling as guilt, secrets, and the ruthless cunning of a manipulative woman push each to the brink.
Acclaimed for his razor-sharp dialogue and streetwise authenticity, New York native Charlie Stella has long drawn comparisons to Elmore Leonard and earned praise from the Washington Post as ‘a kind of obscene Ring Lardner, finding a lean, rancid poetry in his characters’ vernacular.’ His novels, including Johnny Porno, Eddie’s World, and Rough Riders, are often singled out as some of the best contemporary mob fiction.
With his latest novel, Raskin’s World, Stella leaves behind the mob and turns his sharp eye on lawyers and fractured families, chronicling the slow-motion wreckage that follows a single accusation.
The drama unfolds at O’Reilly’s bar, a quiet refuge for two thirty-something lawyers, Tom Raskin and Bobby Medina, who dissect the downfall of their colleague, Jerry Sloane, a fifty-year-old whose infatuation with Carol Delvecchio, “a calculating woman with fangs,” has cost him his marriage, career, and dignity. “He’d been involved with at least 10 other women during his marriage,” Stella writes, “but he’d always been in control of the situation. Not this time.”
Carol Delvecchio, a “scam addict” struggling with addiction and eviction, is more than a femme fatale: she’s a survivor whose pride in “gaming men” unsettles even her brother Nicholas, who’s left “weary of her destructive patterns.” Her manipulations set off a chain reaction. Jerry, suspended from work and spiraling, is both resentful and obsessed, even as Carol’s lawyer delivers the bitter news that her hoped-for payout is “far less than she hoped,” leaving her desperate and angry.
Meanwhile, Tom Raskin harbors a shameful secret: he too once had a drunken encounter with Carol, a fact threatening his marriage to Maryanne. When he confesses, “I never even kissed her. She tried to kiss me, but I stopped her… I was drunk,” Maryanne, torn between anger and love, leaves home, exposing the deep fissures beneath their domestic calm.
Bobby Medina’s marriage is also in jeopardy. His suspicions of his wife Alicia’s infidelity are confirmed in a devastating admission: ‘I had an affair… but I want to take some time for myself.’
The fallout is immediate and brutal. Bobby’s pride and pain spill over in a failed suicide attempt, leaving him in a coma, “induced from what they believed was an ischemic stroke,” and his family teetering on the edge of collapse. Alicia, shunned by Bobby’s mother, faces the consequences alone, her affair with fellow lawyer Frank Gallo unraveling as Frank’s own life implodes.
Stella’s narrative moves with a relentless clarity, tracking each character through the debris of betrayal and regret. Raskin, racked with guilt for Bobby’s fate and his own failings, struggles to hold together what’s left of his family, while Maryanne, “smart and emotionally complex,” tries to mediate the crisis even as she invents her own tale of infidelity to punish Tom.
Carol, trapped by her schemes to exploit Jerry and her need for security, endures Jerry’s perversions, all the while plotting escape—especially after a sexually charged encounter with gangster Dominick DiNucci in Atlantic City. Meanwhile, Nicholas is torn between loyalty to his sister and the demands of his controlling fiancée, Marsha; their standoff is emblematic of the novel’s tangled allegiances.
With trust in tatters and families hanging by a thread, the specter of Bobby’s impending death casts a long shadow, driving each character toward a final reckoning… one that erupts in brutal violence and leaves lasting scars.
Praise for Stella’s work has long centered on his wit and raw realism. Ken Bruen, the Irish crime writer, called Stella “a winner, a true artist.” In Raskin’s World, he delivers a bleak, piercing portrait of lives unmoored by desire, pride, and the corrosive aftermath of betrayal. There are no clean escapes here, only the lingering aftermath of choices that cannot be undone.
Pick up a copy from Amazon or directly from Stark House Press. For more about Stella, find him on his website here.