Costello's Books
Dead Kids Don't Speak
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Insomnia
The Visitor
Alone in the Fight
Is Is the South Philadelphia La Cosa Nostra dead?
Not on your life. They live in Costello’s books: Cockeyed Lou, Tommy Sneakers, Ant Ant, Tony Eggs, Porky Bananas, and more.,They come from Ireland — Cormac Coogan; from Sicily — Govanni Randazzo, the Badger, and from Russia — Aldrich Orlov. They are psychopathic killers. Mix them in with the On the Hill characters and you've got unputdownalbe books. You'e got the On the Hill
Writing about the mob
These are not kids books; they contain adult language and adult situations.
Ron Costello
South Philly
author
While stealing cherries in a neighbor's yard, four rugged kids witness a double homicide. They jump from the trees and run for it. The killer sees them, and unfortunately, it was a mob hit. But the kids are hard-bitten and resilient, and with a death sentence on their backs, they take to the woods and streets to stay alive. Unputdownable.
The President discovers the Russians working on a deadly bacteria to sneak into the United States. But where? And how? The Russians go undetected until the people on the Hill begin acting strangely. They no longer needed to sleep. With the help of the Irish mob and a biker gang in Fishtown, the Hill fights back.
1. Dead Kids Don't Speak
2. Insomnia
Where the Stories Take Place
The Hill, Belmont Hills is located on the edge of Philadelphia across the Schuylkill River from Manayunk. During the 1960s, when Costello's books take place, the Hill was a wonderland of first and second-generation immigrant families, mainly from Italy. Ireland, Germany, and Poland. The author grew up on the Hill, and although his books are fiction, many of the events depicted are true. The verified reviews above say the books are unputdownable. That's also true.
Today, Costello lives in South Philadelphia, where the mob ruled during the '50s and '60s. Costello loves writing about them and hopes he doesn't get shot doing so. If he does at least he was doing something he loves.
3. The Visitor
Camping in the woods, the Hill kids meet an extraterrestrial being. But the CIA and Air Force know about it, too. Everybody — including the Russian and South Philly mobs, wanted the Visitor. But only the kids knew where it they hid it. The Visitor came for its brother, and it didn't take no for an answer.
Get the Three Book Set:
Dead Kids Don't Speak — Insomnia — The Visitor
series.
Alone in the Fight
Dominick Randazzo is a transgender hit woman for the Camorra Mob in Sicily. His brother was the Badger in Dead Kids Don't Speak. No one knows what the real Dominick Randazzo looks like. He/she's a master of disguise's — changing from a man to a woman like a chameleon changes colors. She was sent to the Hill to work for Settimo Bontavelli of the Naples/Salerno Camorra mafia. "Many men have fallen in love with Frenchy just before taking their last breath."
4. Coming, end of summer
Human bodies — or cadavers — are not as scarce as they were in the late sixties, when Alone in the Fight takes place. Today, you can have your driver's license indicate that you want to donate your body to research. But back then, medical research — namely medical schools — couldn't get the bodies needed to teach future doctors.
The Camorra mafia, centered in Naples and Salerno, Italy, was making a profit shipping cadavers to medical schools in Europe. However, the Camorra got greedy and set its sights on American medical schools. Camorra sent people to the outskirts of Philadelphia to set up the business. It also sent its hitman, the Frenchman or Frenchy, transgender hitman, to assist. The American Federation, Camorra's competition, also set up business with their hitman — Chief Red Cloud, who does his killing with Africanized honey bees.
Alone in this story is LM Detective George Rausher, shortly before he retired. He came upon the fighting for bodies — however, no one believed him. Rausher got his own hitman, fight fire with fire, and he had maybe the best: Butcher Hicks.
They all meet on the Hill, where the real fun begins. It you think the other Hill books were suspenseful, wait to you read Alone.
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