______________

‘Hugely entertaining and poignant' - Sunday Times

‘A welcome antidote to knee-jerk nostalgia ... Stapinski's prose hits like bullets ... visceral and memorable' - Image
______________

‘The night my grandfather tried to kill us, I was five years old, the age I stopped believing in Santa Claus ...'

Helene Stapinski had been playing in the family's apartment above the Majestic Tavern in Jersey City when, in the bar downstairs, Grandpa - an ex-con and armed robber - pointed his loaded gun and bragged he had a bullet for each of them. But news travelled fast and within minutes Helene was watching a handcuffed Grandpa go to jail for the last time.

The Stapinskis have a knack for breaking the law. Helene's daily bread was stolen by her father from the cold storage company where he worked and the books on her shelves were swiped from the local bookbinding company. In her own generation, her first cousin embezzled a quarter of a million dollars, tearing the clan apart.

All these stories are part of Helene's unbelievable heritage and of Five Finger Discount, a raucous and heartbreaking tale.