Brisbane-based actor, filmmaker and writer Steve Young has published Hells Kitchen: A New York Mafia Story — a crime thriller novella now available globally through Amazon and the IngramSpark distribution network, reaching over 40,000 retailers and libraries worldwide including Barnes & Noble, Booktopia and beyond. The book is the latest chapter in a deliberately constructed creative strategy that began with a proof of concept film of the same name — a festival winner that earned Young critical acclaim before being picked up by Apple TV and Amazon Prime Video.

Set in New York in 1978, Hells Kitchen drops readers into the height of the mob’s power — five families, an uneasy peace, and a Palumbo family that sits at the top of it all. Until shipments start vanishing, men turn up dead, and no one — not the families, not their crews, not even the FBI — knows who is behind it. Brutal, cinematic and dialogue-driven, the book has drawn comparisons to the great crime sagas of the genre — Goodfellas, Carlito’s Way, Donnie Brasco — and reads like exactly what it is: a story built for the screen, adapted from a completed feature film screenplay that Young is now taking to producers and investors. With a completed feature screenplay, a professional pitch deck and a globally distributed book already in the market, Young is preparing to take the full Hells Kitchen package to the US later this year.