"A slow burning story with a fiery climax that more than lives up to expectations." KIRKUS REVIEW

Book Description:

Carla Pugliese had to kill them; the two men who could identify her. Having left the bodies of the federal agents sent to apprehend her on a Colorado mountain side, she takes a murderous cross-country journey to New York and the two men who are the keys to her freedom; Paul Pugliese and Frank McGinley.

Paul, Carla's uncle and mafia kingpin played her from the beginning. Frank is the only man she set out to kill who lived to tell the tale. GRIT is the sequel to the critically acclaimed novel, The Vig.

GRIT follows Carla and Frank McGinley as they try to mend their damaged souls. One seeks revenge, the other redemption. As they careen towards their inevitable confrontation, a pretty lounge singer, a St. Louis gangster, a drug dealer and a pompous hedge fund manager are left in their wake. GRIT will determine who will finally be free and who will have to live with the knowledge of what they have become.

*****

Author John Nuckel has worked in the financial industry for over thirty years. In that time he has spent many hours on the barstools of Wall Street and run into enough characters to fill a dozen books.

Excerpt from Chapter 1 - (Kindle Locations 50-67)

May13, 2002

“They’re on the roof,” Carla Pugliese said aloud as she reached for her Merrill Glove cross trainers. She had been awaiting the men to determine her escape route. She slipped the trainers over her water-repellent socks. Since they had the roof, she would get out through the tunnel.

She spotted them this afternoon . Two men, clean cut, athletic. It was clear they were not sent by her family. Her uncle arranged all of her hits for years. It was inevitable that one day he would send someone to put her down. No, these were men of a different breed; they looked like Marines or maybe SEALS. It didn’t matter. Carla had a tactical advantage over them and all but a handful of athletes in the world. She was 5.15 climber on the Yosemite grading scale. Carla just had to get them to the mountains.

She spotted them on the bench in front of the New Sheridan Hotel on Colorado Avenue. They couldn’t know that the bench had a special meaning to her. She had lost a dear friend once whom she had met on that bench. She spent many afternoons standing in front of the floor to ceiling windows of her loft looking down at that bench. She would wait until the sunset when the glare would obscure her presence from the street. It was this afternoon, looking down at the bench that she spotted the first man. He had his sunglasses lowered on his nose and was staring up at her window. It was clear he wasn’t from town; his clothes were new yet outdated. He seemed to be staring at her building intently, surveying it. Carla sat at the window and watched him watch her. After an hour of observation, the second man sat next to him without acknowledgement. The lack of recognition stood out. This was Telluride, Colorado, not New York City or Brooklyn where she grew up. People say hello here. She watched as the first man rose and walked up Colorado and made a deliberately wide path to cross the street. He turned left down Willow Street toward the back of her building. As he passed out of sight, she grabbed her pack to load her gear.

Carla killed seven men in the last five years. She left the eighth alive. A mistake she would never repeat. These two will make it nine. As the men tried their best to walk silently across her roof, she went to the hatch in the floor and opened it and made sure that the ladder was still in place.

Grit is available on Amazon!