Book details

  • Genre:fiction
  • Sub-genre:Thrillers / Crime
  • Language:English
  • Pages:356
  • Paperback ISBN:9798996304028

A Different Kind of Justice

The Past Keeps Its Own Ledger

By Vida D. Valenti

Overview

Dante Carbone has achieved the American dream: success, influence, respect, and a loving family. Yet beneath the surface lies a lifetime of remembered injuries—betrayals, humiliations, abuses of power, and acts of cruelty committed by people who were never forced to answer for what they did. Raised in a working-class Italian-American family, Dante learned that loyalty mattered, respect was earned, and memory endured. He also learned that some debts are never forgotten. TWELVE PEOPLE. TWELVE UNRESOLVED DEBTS. As he enters his sixties, Dante revisits the defining betrayals of his life and the individuals responsible. Some were bullies. Some were hypocrites. Some hid behind status, institutions, or respectability. All escaped accountability—or so they believed. Dante's judgments are not based on the severity of an offense, but on the permanence of its impact. In his eyes, those who leave lasting scars on others—through cruelty, betrayal, humiliation, or desecration—deserve permanent judgment, regardless of how society views their offenses. The past has a long memory. One by one, those responsible begin to face consequences they never imagined.
Read more

Description

A Different Kind of Justice By Vida D. Valenti What if the people who caused the deepest wounds in your life never faced consequences—not because they broke the law, but because they escaped it? Dante Carbone has spent a lifetime carrying the weight of betrayals, humiliations, and injustices that no court would ever recognize. Some were acts of cruelty. Others were moments of indifference, greed, or abuse of power. None seemed serious enough to make headlines. Yet each permanently altered the course of a life. Now, in the twilight of his own, Dante has decided that conventional justice has failed. Armed with a meticulous list of twelve people whose actions left lasting scars, he embarks on a calculated campaign to confront the past. His targets are not selected because their offenses were the most violent or sensational. They are chosen because the damage they inflicted never healed. As Dante revisits decades of memories, readers are drawn into a series of gripping encounters that blur the line between vengeance and accountability. Every confrontation raises unsettling questions. Can a single act of humiliation define an entire life? Is emotional cruelty any less devastating than physical violence? Should the passage of time erase responsibility, or does every action leave a debt that must eventually be paid? Interwoven with Dante's mission is the story of the people who shaped him—family, friends, mentors, enemies, and the complicated relationships that reveal both the best and worst of human nature. As investigators begin to recognize an unexpected pattern, Dante's carefully constructed world grows increasingly fragile. The closer he comes to completing his mission, the more difficult it becomes to distinguish justice from obsession. Set against the richly textured backdrop of Italian American life, A Different Kind of Justice is more than a suspense novel. It is a meditation on memory, loyalty, morality, and the enduring consequences of seemingly ordinary acts. It challenges readers to reconsider what constitutes a true injustice and whether society's legal system is equipped to address the injuries that shape a person's identity. Vida D. Valenti has crafted a novel that combines psychological suspense with moral complexity. Rather than relying on graphic violence or sensationalism, the story asks readers to wrestle with uncomfortable questions long after the final page. If someone permanently changes another person's life through betrayal, humiliation, neglect, or abuse of trust, is an apology enough? Can forgiveness truly erase the past? And if the law cannot provide justice, who decides what justice should look like? Powerful, provocative, and emotionally resonant, A Different Kind of Justice invites readers into a world where every choice has consequences, every memory leaves a mark, and every debt eventually comes due. For fans of literary suspense, moral thrillers, and character-driven fiction, this unforgettable debut by Vida D. Valenti explores one of humanity's oldest questions: not whether justice will be served, but who has the right to define it.
Read more

About The Author

4000 Character bio About the Author David D'Alessandro, writing fiction under the pseudonym Vida D. Valenti, is a national bestselling author whose career has spanned business leadership, corporate governance, journalism, and now literary fiction. Before turning to novels, D'Alessandro established himself as one of America's most recognized business writers through his bestselling books Career Warfare, Brand Warfare, and Executive Warfare. Praised for their direct style and practical insights, these books became widely read by executives, entrepreneurs, business students, and professionals seeking to navigate increasingly competitive workplaces. His writing challenged conventional wisdom about leadership, reputation, personal branding, and organizational politics, helping define a generation of business literature. His professional accomplishments extend far beyond publishing. D'Alessandro served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of one of America's leading financial services companies, leading the organization through a period of significant growth and transformation. Throughout his career he has also served as chairman, lead director, and board member of numerous public and private companies, advising organizations across financial services, healthcare, technology, consumer products, hospitality, and private equity. His work in corporate governance has made him a respected voice on leadership, ethics, succession planning, and boardroom decision-making. Equally comfortable writing for the public as he was leading companies, D'Alessandro has contributed opinion essays on business, politics, sports, and public policy to national publications for many years. His commentary combines executive experience with an unmistakably candid style, earning him readers well beyond the business community. Although his professional life centered on boardrooms and executive offices, storytelling remained a lifelong passion. A Different Kind of Justice represents the fulfillment of that ambition. Writing under the name Vida D. Valenti, D'Alessandro shifts from explaining how organizations work to exploring why people behave as they do. His first novel examines the lasting consequences of betrayal, humiliation, loyalty, revenge, and forgiveness. Rather than focusing on crimes that dominate newspaper headlines, the story asks whether the deepest injustices are often those the legal system never recognizes—the betrayals, insults, abuses of trust, and seemingly ordinary moments that permanently alter another person's life. Drawing upon decades of observing ambition, power, success, failure, loyalty, and human frailty, D'Alessandro brings an unusual authenticity to his fiction. The characters in A Different Kind of Justice are shaped not by caricature but by the complicated motivations that drive real people. The novel challenges readers to consider difficult moral questions without offering easy answers, inviting them to decide for themselves where justice ends and vengeance begins. Born and raised in Utica, New York, D'Alessandro's Italian American heritage provides much of the emotional texture found throughout his fiction. Family, community, loyalty, memory, and accountability are recurring themes in his work. While the novel is entirely fictional, it reflects a lifetime spent observing the decisions—both large and small—that define individual character and leave lasting consequences. Throughout his career, D'Alessandro has believed that the most compelling stories are ultimately about people rather than institutions. Whether writing about CEOs, championship sports franchises, corporate crises, or fictional characters confronting their pasts, his interest has always centered on the forces that shape human judgment and behavior. Today he continues to write fiction and commentary while serving on corporate and nonprofit boards. A Different Kind of Justice is his first novel and marks the beginning of a new chapter in an already distinguished writing career. Additional works of fiction featuring the voice of Vida D. Valenti are planned. David D'Alessandro divides his time between Massachusetts, New York and Maine, where he continues to write, speak, and pursue the stories that explore the complicated intersection of power, memory, conscience, and justice.
Read more