1982. Reagan’s grin beams from Zenith televisions. “Eye of the Tiger” blasts from boom boxes. Pac-Man Fever infects arcades. E.T. phones home, the world tries to solve the Rubik’s Cube, and on the grimy streets of Times Square, Frankie Marino is about to turn into a lobster. Dim-witted but kind-hearted, Frankie is at the bottom rung of mafia hierarchy, doing grunt work for mob boss Sal Migliachio, like wiping down peep booths, or breaking the thumbs of deadbeat debtors. Frankie hates his job. He’s just gotta hang in there till he saves enough money to realize his dream of reopening his nonna’s old delicatessen.
Maybe then he’ll be respectable enough to ask out Elsie Mahoney, the little red-headed token clerk whom Frankie’s been hopelessly in love with from afar. But a simple collection job gone sideways sets off a chain of catastrophic events, causing Frankie to land on Sal’s hitlist. And worse, so does Elsie. Desperate, Frankie turns to Dr. Z, the mob’s backroom medic and mad tinkerer. The doctor’s recently been experimenting with lobster DNA, and he’s got an idea that just might save Frankie…
As the neon lights flicker over 42nd Street’s sticky sidewalks, Frankie’s transformation begins. What unfolds is a revenge tale worthy of the countless exploitation films playing around the clock at Midtown grindhouses in 1982. So put on your plastic bib, grab your lobster crackers, and claw your way into this crustaceous tail tale of horror, humor, and heart, as the mob is about to learn the hard way that revenge is a dish best served… with melted butter.
Overall, this was a massively enjoyable and fun novel. The wild setup, going through the intricate layers of the mob family and their different operations working in the restaurant they use for their covert operations, how he’s being used by the group leaders and the low-level jobs he’s being forced to perform which are just demeaning and below what he wants to do with his life, sets him up as a sympathetic loser from the start. His relationship with the clerk, which gets explored in brief passages to show how much he wants to be there with, but it's too much of a coward to do much about, is another fun addition and helps to move the story along for the first few chapters. This does keep the exploitation and horror elements to a minimum in this section, so it’s a bit long-winded and slow-going getting to that point where he gets involved in the experimental procedure, and the sense of revenge occurs.
This second half, following along the controversial experiment with the doctor and the connection with the lobster claws during the surgery, and how that sets him up on the path for revenge, turns this around in a fun way. The interactions that emerge from his newfound condition as he sets about taking revenge on the family for how they treated him, making liberal use of the new attachments he has with his claw hands, leading to a solid slew of encounters that are quite gory, with the different means of revenge taken out. These are given a rather high-energy style compared to the more measured and laid-back beginning, where the different confrontations spark an absurd, over-the-top angle, combined with graphic violence that becomes immensely funny due to its presentation. Some of the tie-ins and call-backs to make the time period feel appropriate are clumsily inserted, but on the whole, this is a fun story.
4.5/5
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