FFB: Stool Pigeon by Louis Malley

A man sitting in his car in New York’s Little Italy is shot to death and police Detective Vincent Milazzo is assigned to the case, in Louis Malley’s 1953 novel, Stool Pigeon.

Detective Milazzo, who grew up in the neighborhood, joined the police department, made good, and got promoted to detective, now needs to find a stool pigeon to break this case. But the neighborhood is traditionally wary of talking to the police. Even though Milazzo is one of them, his choice of profession makes him an outsider.

The dead man is part of a pornography racket luring young women, making sure they are soon broke, then sending them into clubs and onto the street to earn for them. These gangsters have mob connections and may even have powerful members of the police force protecting them. Milazzo finds himself up against the old neighborhood, organized crime, and his own department.

Louis Malley obviously knew how the mob and the cops operated in his era. He uses that knowledge and creates some fine character studies in this suspenseful, fast-paced novel. Every page of Stool Pigeon feels real and true.

Little is written about Louis Malley, other than he was born and raised in New York City and he published four novels: Horns for the Devil, 1951, (reviewed here) which was later republished as Shadow of the Mafia; Stool Pigeon, 1953, later republished as Shakedown Strip; Tiger in the Streets, 1957; and The Love Mill, 1961.

According to court records and a newspaper report, Malley was shot and killed in 1962 at age 40.

Today, Malley’s novels are hard to find, but Stark House Press plans to bring out Stool Pigeon as one of its Black Gat Books.

(For more posts on books, check out Patti Abbott’s blog.)

FFB: Horns for the Devil by Louis Malley

Louis Malley’s 1951 novel, Horns for the Devil, may be my favorite read of the year.

It is the story of Severio Lebbrosa, a rising star in the New York Mafia of the 1940s and 1950s. At 23, he runs an illegal, high-stakes gambling joint frequented by celebrities, politicians, judges, and mob bosses.

Severio hates the local mob lieutenant who oversees all the neighborhood’s activities, including Severio’s game. He has been having run-ins with this low-level boss since he was a kid, and worse, the guy is married to his sister. After the mobster beats his sister, Severio sets out to kill him, which he does early in the book. This sets off the tense story of Severio trying to survive despite the Mafia’s law that anyone who kills a boss will himself be killed – no exceptions. If they catch on that it was Severio, even his godfather, Don Saldona, won’t be able to help him.

Louis Malley gets many things right about the inner workings of the Mafia, which is an achievement since most of the country had no idea what actually went on behind the scenes of organized crime until a hit man named Joe Valachi testified before Congress in 1963. Peter Maas wrote about the real-life gangster in his 1968 book, The Valachi Papers.

Severio could be an earlier version of Sonny Corleone, the volatile oldest son of Don Corleone in Mario Puzo’s 1969 novel The Godfather. He also seemed like one of the wiseguys in Nichols Pileggi’s 1985 non-fiction book, Wiseguy.

The sketchy information available about Malley suggest he grew up in a section of New York City dominated by mobsters. Horns for the Devil is set in Manhattan's Little Italy and as much as it is a suspenseful crime story, it is also a portrait of that neighborhood in the mid-20th century.

Malley’s writing is blunt and forceful and his knowledge of the place and the people comes through on every page. Some of it is so tough it is funny, as when Severio tries to charm a hat-check girl in a nightclub. “Muriel turned around and gave him a look like someone forgot to flush the toilet.”

The title, Horns for the Devil, refers to a symbol sometimes worn on a chain around the neck to ward off the devil.

In 1952, Gallimard published Horns for the Devil in France. The following year, Malley was awarded the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière for the best mystery of 1952, Publishers Weekly reported.

Malley wrote four crime novels: Horns for the Devil, 1951, which was later reissued as Shadow of the Mafia; Stool Pigeon, 1953, later reissued as Shakedown Strip; Tiger in the Streets, 1957; and The Love Mill, 1961.

(For more posts on books, check out Patti Abbott’s blog.)