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.
About the Author: Djelloul Marbrook's first poetry book, 'Far from Algiers' (Kent State University Press, 2008) won the 2007 Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize and the 2010 International Book Award in poetry. His second book of poems is 'Brushstrokes and Glances' (Deerbrook Editions, 2010). Recent poems were published by American Poetry Review, Barrow Street, Oberon, Northport Journal, Meadowland Review, The Same, Reed, The Ledge, Poemeleon, Poets Against War, Fledgling Rag, Daylight Burglary, Orbis, Le Zaporogue, Atticus, Long Island Quarterly, ReDactions, Istanbul Literary Review, Arabesques Literary and Cultural Review, Damazine, Perpetuum Mobile, Attic, and Chronogram. 'Artists' Hill, ' an excerpt from his unpublished novel, Crowds of One, won the 2008 Literal Latté first prize in fiction. 'Artemisia's Wolf, ' a novel, was published by Prakash Books in early 2011. His novel, 'Alice Miller's Room, ' was published in 1999 as an e-book by OnlineOriginals.com (UK), the pioneering British e-book publisher and the only one to have a Booker Prize nominee and numerous mainstream press reviews. Bliss Plot Press of Woodstock, NY, recently published his novel, 'Saraceno, ' as an e-book and an audiobook. His novel 'Guest Boy, ' Book 1 of the trilogy 'Light Piercing Water' is forthcoming in 2012 from Mira Publishing House. His short fiction has been published in Orbis (UK), Potomac Review (Maryland) and Prima Materia (New York). He maintains a lively Facebook presence. A retired newspaper editor and Navy veteran, he lives in Germantown, NY, with his wife Marilyn. During a newspaper career including the The Providence Journal (RI), Elmira (NY) Star-Gazette, Baltimore Sun, Winston-Salem Journal, Washington Star, and Media News dailies in Ohio and New Jersey, he won a number of awards for newspaper writing, page design and photography. His career spanned two major transitions in modern journalism, one from hot lead typography to photo-offset and one to the Internet. He blogs frequently about the media, literature and culture at www.djelloulmarbrook.com.