No Evil Star

Recovering addict and Nam vet, Milo, is resigned to his life as caretaker of St. Margaret's cathedral in 1989 Manhattan. Guaranteed lifetime employment by Monsignor Aloysius, an old WWII comrade of his dead father, Milo's life starts to unravel when ex-CIA friend Dave goes off the deep end. Not only is Dave the heist man whacking drug dealers in Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx, he's also hatching a hare-brained scheme to plunder local mob boss Nunzio's treasure trove of paintings and objets de art recovered from the Germans at the end of WWII - which is conveniently stashed in St. Margaret's cellar. Complicating matters is ex-Viet Cong Yuen - a man with a very personal grudge against Milo and Dave - now working for the Hong Kong Triads. When he arrives in the Big Apple to do business with duplicitous underboss Carmine, just throw in hotheaded rehab priest Father Culkin, innocent single mother Marie struggling to stay straight, Nunzio's homicidal daughter Sarah and Milo's best friend, writer Jack, and you have a recipe guaranteed to erupt into a spiraling out-of-control urban holocaust. "A healthy authorial sense of curiosity and generosity lends weight to No Evil Star's intersecting lives, where Chris D. ably traces out the contours of human torment in a manner recalling American films of the 1970s." - Grace Krilanovich, author of The Orange Eats Creeps