The Shades of Hell

A few days before Christmas in 1969, handsome Tony Bettellini, an Irish-Italian ex-waiter, gets sentenced to life imprisonment for a murder he didnt commit, narrowly beating the death penalty. He has a baptism of fire when he arrives in Sing Sing Prison in up-state New York and finds himself called to reckoning to the office of Warden Wallace, known as The Ambassador, who runs his prison with an iron fist. Wallace soon becomes a dangerous enemy, as does, over the years, Gus Jablonsky, the psychopathic convict chef, who runs the prison kitchen, where Tony is given a job. Tony becomes a leader in the prison, fighting for the rights of the subjugated cons, who are at the mercy of Wallaces goon squad in his corrupt and cruel domain. Will justice finally prevail, and Tony get see free, or is he doomed to become a vegetable on the Hospital Third Floor, or end up in an unmarked grave in Sing Sings convict graveyard? Beautiful Veronica Idlewilde, Tonys famous model socialite girlfriend, heiress to a vast fortune, sticks by him loyally throughout the years of his unjust incarceration, but he still dreams of Shenandoah Buchanan, the girl from Virginia, he fell madly in love with years before. After meeting again at Tonys trial, Shenandoah and Sonny Gracia, Tonys best friend, become close friends. Sonny is deeply in love with her, but she still hankers after Tony, her lost love, who sends her away from Sing Sing when she visits him and tells her to never come back. Many turbulent years pass before Shenandoah realizes she loves Sonny, too. But nothing is as simple as it seems, and the lives of these four people are fatefully intertwined. Set in New York, Virginia, and Sing Sing, this magnificent story, about the triumph of the human spirit over great adversity, love, hate, revenge and salvation, will make you laugh, weep for joy and weep with sorrow. Another unforgettable epic story by Brenda George that begs to be put on the big screen!