Second Avenue Caper: When Goodfellas, Divas, and Dealers Plotted Against the Plague

A single-issue graphic memoir from 2014, published by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, Second Avenue Caper is a deeply personal account of a tight-knit group of friends—a mix of artists, activists, and former mob associates—who banded together in 1980s New York to smuggle an experimental AIDS drug from Mexico. Written and illustrated by Mark Zingarelli, the book chronicles their unlikely, high-stakes heist against the backdrop of a city and community ravaged by the epidemic. It stands as a vivid, unsentimental tribute to the resourcefulness and grit of those who refused to wait for the system to save them.