Eightball At Grady's Palace East, a Basil Rosa novel

There is a description below of this first novel of a trilogy set in Rhode Island in the late 1970s and early 80s. You can find the novel here: 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1025313

A thank you to Erika B Hollen for help with the cover design.

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Eightball At Grady’s Palace East blends 1970s drug mules, dealers and low-level mafia operatives with a story about friendship, love and survival among a variety of creative spirits and an immigrant who calls himself KJ. The K stands for Ken, as in the doll mated to Barbie, and the J stands for Jones, as in one of America’s most common family names. 

Born Khosrow Hor, KJ is a Baha’i immigrant from Tehran whose student and tourist visas have expired. The year is 1979. His parents left the United States just prior to the Khomeini revolution in Iran and now that The Shah has been deposed and the Mullah’s have come to power, KJ cannot return to his homeland. 

He fears his parents have been murdered. He tries repeatedly, but he cannot contact them. Anti-Iranian sentiment in the U.S. is at an all-time high. Finding gainful employment appears impossible. With Leland Sibley’s help, KJ is hired as a dishwasher, paid in cash. Scotty Greco helps too, introducing him to neighborhood friends such as the acting student Orbit, the low-level capo Little Nazo, and soldiers Vinnie Vee and Lucio DiPippo.

As a native to the city’s Federal Hill neighborhood, Scotty Greco has big ambitions to work as an actor and to rise from drug mule to capo under the tutelage of Little Nazo and Little Fig Triventi. Scotty’s proud to claim KJ as his first friend from the Middle-East. So is Leland Sibley, a transplant from a small town north of the city. Leland tries to help KJ, just as he helps his ailing, widowed mother. Nearly each cent he earns goes to her. He and KJ need Scotty and his connections. They take orders from Little Nazo, who schools Leland in how to use a .38 and gives him one along with protected status as the go-to cocaine dealer at the Grady’s Palace East bar. Though not an Italian-American, Leland can still get “made” if he proves his worth to Triventi. He works with Scotty and KJ running money and drugs throughout the city’s seedier neighborhoods. Their friendship transcends their cultural differences, but they live a dangerous existence.

KJ decides he wants out. He’s met Bree, a waitress at the restaurant where he washes dishes. She loves theatre and has encouraged him to write a play about what it’s like to live as an exile. Orbit, too, encourages him. As does Serena, another waitress and Bree’s best friend. 

Leland knows Serena. He used to date her. He cannot say no to KJ’s request that he talk to Little Nazo and arrange a way out for him. Leland talks first to Scotty, who says they’re in for life. Leland’s unaware that Scotty has been deceiving Little Nazo and giving information about drug pick-ups to Nazo’s rivals. This leads to Scotty getting murdered. Now Leland wants out. There’s only one way. He must kill Nazo’s rival that Scotty was working for. After that, he must leave Providence. 

As Leland prepares in secret for his assassination attempt, KJ, with Bree’s help, completes writing his play. He proposes marriage to Bree and she accepts. Now he can get a green card. Orbit has helped too, finding a theatre to stage KJ’s play. 

It’s the night KJ’s play opens. Leland has promised to come, but it’s also the night that he must make his first hit in order to get out from under Little Fig Triventi. Details have been worked out, but even if Leland succeeds, he won’t be able to stay in Providence. Nor will he ever never see his friends or his mother again. 

What will Leland do?