Product Description

From his curved-glass desk in a casino overlooking the Atlantic City boardwalk, Jackie “Disaster” DeSesto—an ex-welterweight boxing champ and former top flack for the Atlantic City Police Department—has a great view of the hustlers he now makes his living nailing.

Jackie runs Allegation Sciences, a crisis management firm known for helping businesses with uncomfortably public problems. That’s why Sally Naturale, America’s deliciously loathsome doyenne of good taste and wholesome living, hires him after a pregnant South Jersey woman blames her miscarriage on Sally’s organic soy milk.

Jackie doesn’t buy the poor woman’s story and, worse, he doesn’t buy Sally Naturale’s version either. His suspicions are confirmed when assassins from the Jersey Pine Barrens try to kill him one night in his sleep.

So with his band of subversives (a.k.a. the Imps), Jackie embarks on a gonzo damage control campaign to vindicate Sally and catch the folks who are trying to drag him down with her.

In turns suspenseful and hilarious, Jackie Disaster is a spin-till-you’re dizzy dance through the mysteries of media manipulation and South Jersey.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2766795 in Books
• Published on: 2004-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

From Publishers Weekly
The world of the private eye and the spy gets spun for the 21st century in Dezenhall's broadly comic romp, in which Jackie Disaster protects the reputations of corporate clients under attack. Born Giovanni De Sesto, Jackie picked up his moniker as a kid boxer fighting in Golden Gloves and has grown up to head Allegation Sciences, with offices in an Atlantic City casino. Hired by Sally Naturale-kind of a mutated Martha Stewart from Jersey-after a woman claims she lost her unborn baby from drinking one of Sally's soy milk products, Disaster heads out to discredit the accuser and make the daffy Sally look as untarnished as possible. Dezenhall (Money Wanders), who once worked in the Reagan White House and currently is president of a crisis management firm, seems to be extrapolating the action from his popular nonfiction book, Nail 'Em! Confronting High-Profile Attacks on Celebrities and Businesses (1999). The undercover scenes with Jackie and his crew, known as the Imps, are great entertainment, with the Mafia hovering in the shadows and that Jersey setting, where "the Rocky movies had once been to the Delaware Valley what the Koran is to Islam." But the more realistic moments-Jackie's romance, problems with his father and raising his orphaned niece as a single dad-don't quite click amid all the clowning. This novel provides lots of fun in a Carl Hiassen mode.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Dezenhall's second novel shows the author growing as a storyteller. His debut, Money Wanders [BKL F 1 02], was funny and perceptive, but his latest effort, again starring Atlantic City crisis-management expert Jackie "Disaster" DeSesto, has a little more depth and does not depend quite so much on wacky set-pieces to tickle our funnybones. There are still some cartoonish supporting characters, but the story itself, concerning a lawsuit over a miscarriage that may have been caused by an organic milk product, is serious and delicately handled. It's almost as if, having tested the waters in Money Wanders, Dezenhall (himself a crisis-management expert) has decided to plunge into the deep end. Highly recommended for fans of the first book and for those who like their comic mysteries to possess serious undercurrents. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

From the Back Cover
Praise for Eric Dezenhall’s Money Wanders

“A riotous parody . . . [Dezenhall’s] superb eye and ear at times call to mind such masters of the journalistic novel as Tom Wolfe.” —Time

“A great read. It’s full of odd characters, quirky locations, and a clever, fresh plot that kept me turning pages.” —The Baltimore Sun

“It’s a little unnerving to read a spin doctor’s book on how easy it is for a spin doctor and his friends to dupe everybody—but, in Money Wanders, it’s also very funny.”
—Philadelphia Daily News

“Dezenhall starts us off chuckling, moves us easily to guffaws, and then winds up with some nicely timed belly laughs. . . . If this debut is any indication, Dezenhall’s career as a novelist shouldn’t need much spinning to take off.” —Booklist (starred review)

“Thoughtful, unpretentious, filled with laugh-out-loud funny scenes and delightfully realized characters. Place your bets on this winner.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Customer Reviews

a proofreading disaster
I agree with the other reviewers that this book is great fun to read. But apparently no proofreader did so. This publication is absolutely RIFE with typos, punctuation gaffes and distracting errors. SpellCheck isn't enough, Thomas Dunne Books - a live human needs to proof it, too.

superb satire
Former professional boxer Jackie "Disaster" De Sesto manages Allegation Services, a crisis-management spin-doctor firm. His offices overlook the gaming floor of the Golden Prospect Casino in Atlantic City, owned by his prime customer and girlfriend, Angela Vanni, daughter of a deceased Mafia boss. Jackie Disaster and his team of Imps handle and often deliver scams and cons to paint a rosy picture of his clients regardless of the truth.

Millionaire Sally Naturale hires Jackie Disaster and associates to restore her and her firm's reputation. Murrin Connolly filed a lawsuit claiming that the organic soymilk that Sally's company produces caused her to miscarry. Expert Jonah Eastman suggests a two front attack. First Jackie Disaster and team need to destroy the credibility of Murrin with a negative dirt smearing campaign and second Sally must act contrite in public as a counter to her posh upper crust living style. Instead of smooth sailing, Jackie lives up to his nickname as nothing goes right especially when Sally vanishes. Jackie and the Imps begin a new counteroffensive.

JACKIE DISASTER is a superb satire that showcases a professional who uses any means including dirty tricks to provide counter cover for the rich and famous. The story line stuns the audience with its relative simplicity that paints a dirty image making game by the in crowd to protect their reputation. A cast, starting with the antihero and his cohorts including his father, niece, girlfriend, and new client make for a wild ride down the Jersey shore. To protect the image of Eric Dezenhall, a sequel is required.

Harriet Klausner

Completely Bogus
I could only get through 1/4 of this book because of the inconsistencies and outright errors. It spoiled what is decent writing. I live in Atlantic City and work in the gaming industry, so when I saw this book in the library I snatched it up (thank goodness I didn't waste my hard-earned money!).

First of all, his charaterization of Atlatnic City casinos is totally incorrect. He has a mobster owning an AC casino, something that would NEVER happnen in the 25 years of legal gambling in AC. It just can't happen because the regulations are so tight. And the hero, Jackie, is a consultant who has full run of the casino where he works. Again, would NEVER happen. Early in the book Jackie and his cohorts grill a woman in the "Hellivator," a specially adapted elevator to pressure cheaters. What an imagaination! It would NEVER happen.

But OK, for arguement's sake, let's give him some literary license.

The hero, Jackie, is an Italian American who supposedly has a problem early in the book with the "stereotype" of the Wop. But a few pages later, he makes fun of an Italian American who graduated college and is the casino's COO because this gentleman forgot how close he is to Siciily. You can't have it both ways.

And his introduction of characters (all of whom have the typical "mob" nicknames, another inconsistency for someone who doesn't like sterotypes) is like a shotgun. He tries to out-Elmore Leonard Elmore Leonard, and fails miserably.

An extremely disappointing book and for anyone familiar with the South Jersey/Atlantic City area, his errors are unforgivable. And spell check would have indeed helped.

Pass this one by.