The Brother-in-law

Just days before the catastrophic events of 9-11, and after months of meticulous plotting, a disguised Bart LaRocca inflicts vengeance on his brother-in-law, the powerful and unscrupulous Mafia boss, Al (aka Little Nicky) Nicosia. Bart then vanishes without a trace. The Brother-in-Law is a fictional, suspense filled, forty year saga of an Italian-American couple and their son, whose lives are caught up and shattered by their insidious family association with the New York mob. The first day Bart LaRocca and Al Nicosia met in high school an instant dislike developed. However, neither of them could imagine how events over the next four decades would transform their adolescent dislike into loathing, and Bart’s overwhelming desire for revenge. Bart LaRocca was the naïve product of a typical post WWII middle class Long Island family. When he meets the Nicosia brothers Bart is exposed to the nefarious world of organized crime. Pietro Nicosia, their father, is a high ranking member of the Leucchi crime syndicate. The oldest brother, Al, eagerly embraces his father’s criminal lifestyle. John, the youngest son, abhors the family legacy and becomes one of Bart’s closest friends and allies. As fate would have it, Bart and their younger sister Gina fall passionately in love, marry and have a son, Peter. Determined to avoid the parasitic forces that surround his in-laws, Bart pursues his career away from New York. First as a U.S. Air Force officer he is assigned to Italy where he and Gina have a fantastic double wedding in Venice with her brother John and his fiancée. Their son Peter is born in Italy but shortly after his birth Bart receives orders for Vietnam. During Bart’s tour in Nam, Gina and Peter move in with her parents where Peter comes under his Uncle Al’s influence. Upon Bart return and discharge from the Air Force, and initially with Gina’s support, Bart accepts jobs that move his family up and down the east coast and into the mid-west. However, neither time nor distance can expunge from their lives the specter of his in-law’s criminal empire and Al’s violent exploits. At one point even Bart’s impeccable reputation is put in jeopardy by “associates” of the Nicosias. Finally, after 20 years of discord, her father’s death, and Peter’s going off to college, Gina moves back with her mother in New York. These events herald in Little Nicky’s destructive influence on his sister and nephew Peter. When Peter becomes tragically involved in one of Little Nicky’s criminal schemes, Gina helplessly plummets into depression, alcohol, and drugs, thus foreshadowing the final confrontation between Bart, aided by a handful of interesting and influential friends, and his infamous brother-in-law.