''Shamrock Alley'' is a crime novel written by American novelist

Ronald Malfi Ronald Malfi is an American novelist whose genres include horror, thrillers, mainstream, and literary fiction. Malfi is also a musician, having fronted the Baltimore-based alternative rock band Nellie Blide as well as his current project, Vee ...

. It was originally published in 2009 by Medallion Press. The novel is based on a real-life investigation Malfi's father, a retired

Secret Service A secret service is a government agency, intelligence agency, or the activities of a government agency, concerned with the gathering of intelligence data. The tasks and powers of a secret service can vary greatly from one country to another. For ...

agent, had worked back in the 1970s against

The Westies The Westies were a New York City-based Irish American organized crime gang, responsible for racketeering, drug trafficking, and contract killing. They were partnered with the Italian-American Mafia and operated out of the Hell's Kitchen nei ...

. This is also the final novel where the author used his middle name on the cover and title page. The novel won a Silver Independent Publisher Book Awards medal (IPPY) for Best Mystery/Suspense/Thriller.

Synopsis

Following an influx of counterfeit money,

agent John Mavio goes undercover with an Irish gang known as the West Side Boys in Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen. Mavio's goal is to shut down the ring of organized crime and flush out the source of the counterfeit money, an operation that is perhaps the worst in history. The gang is led by two Irish thugs from Hell's Kitchen, Mickey O’Shay and Jimmy Kahn. These two violent criminals have been terrorizing the Upper West Side for years, and are involved in more than just a counterfeit operation—the local police have been investigating them for many years in connection with countless unsolved homicides. O'Shay and Kahn have inflicted gruesome deaths on numerous victims by bludgeoning, stabbing, shooting, and cutting into pieces the bodies of those who got in their way or refused to cooperate with their treacherous schemes. This brutality has even earned them some fear from the Mafia. Mavio's undercover role takes him deeper and deeper into the gruesome world of O'Shay, Kahn, and the rest of the West Side Boys. His life undercover is brutal and dangerous, and not only detrimental to his own well-being, but puts at risk the lives of Katie, his pregnant wife, and his dying father.

Reception

The book received generally favorable reviews. BookReview.com called it "an interesting police procedural" while one ''Booklist'' reviewer stated, "This is a gripping thriller, similar to the novels of

Gerald Petievich Gerald Petievich is a Serbian-American writer of crime novels, most notably ''To Live and Die in L.A.'' and '' The Quality of the Informant''. He was a United States Secret Service The United States Secret Service (USSS or Secret Service) ...

, the

agent turned author ('' To Live and Die in L.A.'' is his most well-known title), but with more emotional and moral depth. The author's previous books have garnered him acclaim and a small but devoted audience; this one could easily lift him into the mainstream." Author Lorenzo Carcaterra called the novel "a bottom-of-the-ninth, two-out, grand slam home run of a book."Publisher's website
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References

{{Reflist 2009 American novels American crime novels Novels about the Irish Mob Novels set in Manhattan Novels about organized crime in the United States American thriller novels