The Old Turk's Load

A tight, fast, and funny crime novel set amid the Newark riots of 1967. When a load of high octane heroin goes missing in the melee, criminals, cops, do-gooders, and lowlifes scramble to possess it. But the heroin has ideas of its own, leading its pursuers on a very un-merry, increasingly deadly chase.
 
Angelo DiNoto, a ruthless New Jersey crime boss, supplements his ill-gotten gains by importing blindingly pure artisinal smack produced by an old Turkish farmer. A five million dollar shipment disappears, and DiNoto can think of nothing better to do than go on a murderous rampage.
 
Richard Mundi, in whose lap the drugs have landed, is a burned out Manhattan real estate developer who plans to use the unexpected windfall as capital to revive his crumbling business empire. His gorgeous daughter Gloria, in bed - literally - with a band of wannabe revolutionaries, sees the heroin as a way to escape her father's looming presence and impress the woman she truly loves. The Mailman is a longtime postal clerk who has survived the worst that life has to offer —until throat cancer robs him of his voice and the will to live. To him, the drugs are a ticket to a better place. Topping off the cast is Walkaway Kelly, a private eye and Hell's Kitchen barfly who teeters continually on the brink of redemption.
 
Stir in Kelly's lovelorn sidekick, a pair of closeted gay hoodlums who work as DiNoto's enforcers, Mundi's conflicted protégé ( a slab of muscle with a moral conscience, who also serves as Gloria's nanny), and you have an Elmore Leonard-esque cast of characters running rampant in a convincingly wrought historical setting. Gregory Gibson weaves a thrilling, twisty plot in which disparate threads converge in an unforgettable showdown over the Old Turk's Load.