FIVE FINGER DISCOUNT

This quirky memoir begins, quite literally, with a bang: ''The night my grandfather tried to kill us, I was five years old.'' Amid the toxic backdrop of Jersey City, the author's grandpa, who steals anything within his slippery reach, crowns a twisted family tree that includes characters such as Aunt Katie, who, spurred on by slugs of Canadian Club, fuels the neighborhood's notoriously corrupt political machine. Cousin George gets arrested on 57 counts of burglary, while Cousin Gerri takes her laundry-supply company for $219,792.55. Stapinski feels an obvious affection for her crooked clan, and there's some real humor in their vividly remembered misdeeds. But ultimately, her flat storytelling never gives these tales flight, and her family history reads more like a rap sheet. B-