The Untold Tale of Shady Badesso has been two years in the writing. While it touches on many of the same elements and themes as my other works—friendship, love and loyalty—it also incorporates something new for me. A little bit of suspense. As are all of my novels, the story is set in my adopted home state of Connecticut, a place I have now lived for more than twenty years. What made this story even more fun to write is that within it I was also able to sprinkle in a trip to my wife’s and my favorite place to visit in the entire world—Nantucket, a beautiful island off the coast of Cape Cod that we spend some time in each summer.
Shady Badesso arrived in Niantic, Connecticut from nowhere. With arms as thick and sturdy as PVC pipe, a back broader than a drive-in movie screen, and legs the size of a 75 year old oak tree, he looked like he was built from leftover parts at a hardware store. He was friendly, but had very few friends. If you Googled him, you would find absolutely NOTHING. It was as if he had been dropped into the small northern coastal town from thin air. But when two men escape from a nearby prison and kidnap one of the locals–a mysterious and confident young woman that Shady has feelings for, the prisoners find themselves utterly unprepared for the unexpected variable thrown in their path. A variable named Shady Badesso.
At its core, Shady Badesso is a story of redemption, as one man attempts to come to terms with the worst thing he has ever done, while spending his life trying to make amends for it. The battle within the main character is whether he can ever forgive himself or even whether he needs to be forgiven at all.
RELEASE DATE: Friday, March 1, 2019
“Jim Reilly woke up dead one morning and was really pissed off about it. He snapped open the paper while sitting on the can, the way he did every morning, and found himself staring at an old picture of himself in the Obituary section on Page 6…”