SINATRA AND ME The Very Good Years

A key member of Sinatra's inner circle, Tony "The Clam" Consiglio shared these accounts of being the iconic singer's right-hand man, confidant, and friend to coauthor Douskey over many years. Now he recounts them for today's fans. Narrator Norman Dietz provides an emphatic New Jersey Italian-American delivery--perhaps too much so. While they're all here--Sinatra's salad days, marriages, remarkable talent, and death--the stories are familiar to most. There's little new insight or context and an overabundance of detail, such as "Sinatra answered the yellow kitchen wall phone answering a call from his son's kidnappers." Overall, the book's poor writing and organization fail the believability test, and the audiobook does not make up for its shortcomings. W.A.G. © AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine [Published: FEBRUARY 2013]