A.C.E. Writers

“Daddy’s Tavern” Written by Curt Gibson
By Jan Verhoeff

Lenny kicks off this page turner like a can from the gutter along Maude Street, a community living in the shadow of the Chicago Fires. The result of an afternoon respite from the summer heat and loneliness of the war, Lenny carries his personal burdens as he blunders through the early years of his life. A troubled youth with many strikes against him, Lenny hangs onto the hope of his father’s return from the military. His mother’s choices together with happenstance leaves Lenny on the street. Another time another place, and the man who suspects he’s really Lenny’s father finds him, brings him back to the tavern and keeps him until the military takes him away.

A series of events meander their way through Lenny’s life until he meets the woman who inspires him to change. His motivation is complete as he comes full circle to entrepreneurial pursuits. Lenny can be what he wants to be and he endeavors to become more.

You’ll be won over by his spirit and soul in this book surprisingly packed with murder, crime, and mayhem from every port. Lenny is an innocent soul who overcomes the trials of a rough start in life and actually becomes an upstanding businessman with a grand future. I found myself crying in one part and laughing in other parts as his character overcomes tragedy and ascends to greater heights.

I think what impresses me most about this book is the fact that Lenny comes from a place of underachievement and actually overcomes obstacles of most every sort to start his own business and become a productive part of a society where his friends are actually thugs. The recognition of a different sort of justice from the inner city where values arise from a different place in the soul brought me back to reality in the end of the book, as one character realized and stood on the fact that he was a good person, despite rough beginnings and errors in his life.

I would read the book again, recommend it to friends and have suggested it to a few who prefer a good life line story over the traditional mysterious crime tales.

This and more reviews are posted at http://janverhoeffonline.wordpress.com