You’ve probably read stories about mob bosses or seen a few movies about underground networks of criminals. In the majority of those stories, the major players are men. In the world of the Valentine series, while the men seem to be in charge, in reality, its the women who are doing most of the work and running the show. (SPOILER ALERT AHEAD IF YOU’VE NEVER READ VALENTINE!)
Val Entienne, the title character of the Valentine series, is a young woman who knows how to handle a gun and was practically raised within the Syndicate (The Syndicate is the network of mob bosses, criminals, hitmen, etc). Both her father and her uncle worked for John Rafferty, who is known as the Head of the Syndicate, until her uncle was killed and her father decided he was ready to get out. Val unknowingly becomes part of The Syndicate the day she fires a weapon and saves her father’s life (BTW: she’s only six years old when this happens). From that day forward, she develops a reputation that has the toughest men in the Syndicate afraid of her.
Val is just one of a small handful of women in the Syndicate: there’s hitwoman Lola Vencent, who once worked for Rafferty, Mac Avery, a freelance hitwoman, Kelly McCormick arranges hits here and there, and one of her best employees, Jo Fuentes. And I can’t leave out Barbara O’Riley, friend of Lola and fellow hitwoman. While there are plenty of men working in this business, these are the woman with the most widely known reputations. They’re the ones you turn to, when you need a job to be done right. Stiil, for the most part, these women are still treated like underlings: second-class citizens who don’t deserve to have a higher rank within the Syndicate. At one point, Rafferty even refers to people like Lola as “garbage men”, because all they’re good for is taking out the trash.
Rafferty’s greatest enemy in the Syndicate isn’t another mob boss–it’s Val Entienne. When she makes a trip all the way out to California to rescue her father, she sends a message to the rest of the Syndicate: women don’t have to “stay in their place” anymore. They are just as powerful and just as important as the men. When you read the upcoming Young Kelly McCormick, you may learn that this movement didn’t necessarily start with Val…it started with Kelly.
Young Kelly McCormick goes back in time to Kelly’s life as a twenty-year-old woman, living with her father and uncle out on Long Island. Her father works for the Syndicate, and its no secret. Kelly takes after her father, in the sense that she’s a problem solver. She does a favor for a man who ends up becoming her right hand, and she shows all of the men in the Syndicate, women are good for more than just being eye-candy. Her place in the Syndicate changes over time as she moves up in rank (if you’ve read the ending of Valentine 5: The Queen’s Fold, you know exactly what I’m talking about).
The heart of the story in Young Kelly McCormick is the idea that a person’s gender makes no difference when it comes to getting the job done. Kelly is the first woman to make a mark within the Syndicate of her time, and she creates an opening for women like Val and Lola. Without her, Val, Lola, Mac, Jo and Barbara wouldn’t exist.
Young Kelly McCormick will be available for sale on Amazon later this month.
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