With all the new corruption that seems to be going on in Washington DC these days I don’t know if we need more fictionalized stories, but The Salad Oil King looks like a good one.
Whichever the case, the story of Alfonso “Fonso” Gravanese has all the elements needed to be a classic tale of American crime, and it spins out from a master storyteller.
Born in Little Italy, Fonso starts off learning how to con early from watching his father stuff fish full of ice before weighing them to sell to customers. His father’s ambition is to get a little extra money for the family, but Fonso’s dreams are greater, and he has the passion to pursue them. When his father moves from selling fish to having a butcher shop, he finds ways to get more money from that, too, even studying meat carving, so he can find a way to get more meat from each cut and more money from each animal. After his father’s death, he moves on to bigger and better things, finding loopholes in laws that allow him to gain more and more money for himself.
From the review at http://sanfranciscobookreview.com/product/salad-oil-king/
Get it on Amazon HERE or check out the author’s website – http://mgcrisci.com/books/salad-oil-king/
