Publication Date: September 9, 2025
From award-winning author Lou Berney comes an electrifying new novel that follows a uniquely American crime family on an unforgettable journey across four decades.
You’ve never met a family like the Mercurios.
They say the American dream is going farther in life than your parents ever did. But how does that work if your parents are criminals?
For Buddy, a low-level mob wise guy, and Lillian, a charming pickpocket, the criminal underworld is the only life they’ve ever known. When they’re forced to flee the glittering Babylon of Las Vegas, they end up opening a club in Oklahoma City—a town that quickly feels like a gold mine of fresh marks and easy new money. Along for the ride are their five children, all of them raised into the family business of crime—until the day comes when they each have a chance to make their own way in the world, even if they can never completely escape the family’s long, dark shadow.
Jeremy, the family’s Golden Boy, will throw himself into the glittering excesses of a drug-fueled Hollywood in the roaring 1980s.
Tallulah, the daredevil, will find herself in the deadly Wild West of post-communist Moscow.
Ray, the dope, the dumb muscle since he was a kid, wants nothing more than to put down his gun, but following orders is all he’s ever known.
Alice, the genius who renounced her life of crime long ago, now sees her white-shoe law firm being blackmailed and must tap into old skills to save both the company and her own life.
And Piggy, a civilian always on the outside looking in on his crime family, desperate to be part of the gang.
Crooks is an epic novel about a truly unforgettable family–forty years of peril as each Mercurio has to grapple, in their own way, with the family’s powerful criminal legacy.
Buddy Mercurio may have inherited a family name with a long history of criminality, but he takes it to new heights once he marries Lillian Ott.
Their adventures kick off events in Crooks by Lou Berney as the young couple lives it up in the sixties with Vegas as the backdrop. Buddy’s off-the-books endeavors force what is then a family of seven to flee to Oklahoma City.
The lives of the five children—Ray, Jeremy, Alice, Tallulah, and Paul—unfold throughout the story. From a young age, the four older kids learned how to hustle and use the family’s trademark skills to get ahead.
The story traces the children through a 40-year span as they pursue their own dreams. There’s an interesting twist relating to Paul that provides depth and ties the story together.
Crooks offers a fascinating perspective inside the lives of a criminally minded family.
Lou Berney is the multiple award–winning author of November Road, The Long and Faraway Gone, Double Barrel Bluff, Dark Ride, as well as Gutshot Straight and Whiplash River. His short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Ploughshares, and the Pushcart Prize anthology. He lives in Oklahoma City.
