Badfellas by Milton Wright
Welcome to the illegal sugar trade.
Theodore Kaye’s career choice—sugar industrialist, candy and other delicacies seller—was made a crime. Now he’s the Don of the Jawbreakers, a sugar gang that runs the city streets, and he’s coated his gooey businessman appearance with a delicious criminal exterior. A deal with the corrupt mayor secures his gang’s place at the top. But deals can change.
Danny, a young organist and a pastor’s brother, wants to make a name for himself—something like “Crazy Guns” or “Ghostface,” if possible. So he joins the Jawbreakers. He’ll do what it takes to climb the ranks and do it with a clean conscience. Mostly clean. He’ll play it by ear.
The Jawbreakers soon find themselves in an all-out war with the government. They become something more than criminals. They become competitors.
Funny, thrilling, and dangerously clever, Badfellas stretches between prohibition gangster story, satire, and absurdist comedy with ease. Think Terry Pratchett meets Martin Scorsese, Arrested Development meets The Godfather. Wordplay, an underground sugar economy, and a sociopath clown—Badfellas has it all.
“For too long, the streets of our fair city have been overrun with the white menace—and I’m not talking about the elderly gang that’s been robbing people outside health food stores. No, the white menace, Chattanoogan oatmeal, crazy sand, the Devil’s salt, sucrose, Brussels opium. Sugar!”