Free Danner

Free Danner was his name as a kid. Now 22, he's just Danner and he really is free, after spending ten years in Juvy for what he considered an act of mercy. Danner's determined to find the father who doesn't know he exists. Everybody's out to screw him, especially the big shot who hired him as a hit-man-in-training. So what's a guy to do? The right thing, if only Danner could distinguish right from wrong.
Free Danner is only eleven and already damaged from an unstable lifestyle when his party-girl mom sends him to live with her parents on their Southern Illinois farm. The generation gap proves harder on the rebellious city boy than his grandparents and soon results in a tragedy so horrific no one could've predicted it. Fast forward to Danner at twenty-two, by-passing those years he spent in the juvenile system and then some. He locates his mom Lark in St. Louis and demands she name the clueless dad. Lark's not sure but with Danner's not-so-gentle persuasion, she comes up with three possibilities. Danner's search for his father and a better life takes him on a crisscross journey to Las Vegas, Southern California, and the Florida Panhandle. Most of the people he encounters along the way either wind up dead or wanting Danner out of their lives. But they don't know the real Danner or what being free means to him.
This coming-of-age novel for readers over 18 borders on the edgy side, as in dark humor with a cast of memorable, off-beat characters.

Loretta Giacoletto divides her time between the St. Louis Metropolitan area and Missouri's Lake of the Ozarks where she concentrates on writing fiction, essays, and her blog Loretta on Life while her husband cruises the waters for bass and crappie. Their five children have left the once chaotic nest but occasionally return for her to-die-for ravioli and roasted peppers topped with garlic-laden bagna càuda. An avid traveler, she has visited numerous countries in Europe and Asia but Italy remains her favorite, especially the area from where her family originates: the Piedmont region near the Italian alps.
Loretta's novels are filled with bawdy characters caught up in problems they must suffer the consequences for having created. In LETHAL PLAY a grieving widow is suspected of killing her son's coach, a man with more enemies than friends. FAMILY DECEPTIONS follows two generations of earthy characters who learn to thrive and/or survive through a series of misdeeds, the worst against those they love the most. FREE DANNER features a cynical young man whose troubled past and deadly encounters hinder his search for the father he has yet to meet. THE FAMILY ANGEL is an Italian/American saga about the Americanization of an immigrant family of bootleggers, coalminers, winemakers and priests, and a mysterious black angel who enjoys sticking his nose in the family business. CHICAGO'S HEADMISTRESS, a prequel and partial parallel to THE FAMILY ANGEL, follows a 1905 Italian street urchin's notorious rise to wealth and power as the headmistress of Night School, Prohibition Chicago's most popular and innovative men's club in the 1920s. Loretta is also the author of A COLLECTION OF GIVERS AND TAKERS, an anthology of twisted stories about the good, the bad, the self-centered and the disillusioned
In addition to the horror anthologies, Damned in Dixie and Hell in the Heartland, Loretta's short stories have appeared in a number of publications including The MacGuffin, Futures Mystery Anthology Magazine, The Scruffy Dog Review, Allegory and Literary Mama, which nominated her story "Tom" for Dzanc's 2010 Best of The Web.