We have galleys of Sweeney on the Rocks

We got in galleys of Allen Jones’s crime novel, Sweeney on the Rocks, last week, and the cover looks as great in person as it did when it was just an image on a screen (see below). Just perfect for this novel set in Montana, which also features the waning days of Italian wise guys in Brooklyn, the rise of the Russian mafia, and main character, Ted Sweeney, and his reluctant retreat into the witness protection program. Throw in a bag of uncut “rocks” (diamonds), an ex-wife turned country sheriff, a beloved mentor that might or might not be dead and a former mistress cashing in favors, and we have a new genre, the Montanabrooklyn crime novel., which Allen sorta pioneered in his last book, 2016’s A Bloom of Bones.

We spoke to Allen about the genesis of Sweeney on the Rocks. “Some years ago, I read a book, Witsec, by journalist Pete Earley and Gerald Shur, founder of the Witness Protection Program,” Allen recalls. “In Witsec, they talk about how in the early days of the program, when they had very limited resources, they would place wise guys around certain individual federal marshals who could act as overseers. One of these clusters of wise guys was apparently based in Bozeman, Montana. Mobsters in small town Montana. That stuck with me.”

Jones took the true story of mobsters in Montana as his cue to make Sweeney as realistic as possible. “As narratively cliched as the idea of witness protection has come to be, it’s still compelling,” Jones shares. “And it has its roots in real life.” Part of what makes the novel feel so alive is that Jones visited all of the locations referenced in the book. “I know Montana cold, so those sections of the book were relatively easy with regard to getting the location right. Brooklyn was a little trickier, but during the years while my wife and I lived in Park Slope, I did my best to get to know the other neighborhoods. It would be the work of a lifetime to get to know Brooklyn really well, but I think I got a pretty good start, recalling where I’d been.”

Allen’s previous two novels have both been award-winners, as Last Year’s River was a Barnes and Noble Discover selection, and A Bloom of Bones was an honorable mention for the 2017 Montana Book Award. Sweeney on the Rocks seems to be following that trend, earning some early praise from Gwen Florio, author of the Lola Wicks mysteries, who writes, “Read the first sentence of Allen Morris Jones’ Sweeney on the Rocks, and just try to put it down. Not possible. Jones’ tale of Cosimo Aniello turned Ted Sweeney, Brooklyn badass turned Montana mensch with a push from WITSEC, grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go. With prose as cool and shimmering as the ice in a wiseguy’s heart, Sweeney on the Rocks belongs with the best of literary crime fiction.”

Sweeney on the Rocks will be available on April 16, 2019.