Chances (novel)

Chances is a 1981 novel by

The blackout, a real event that Collins describes in some detail affects all the major characters either directly or indirectly.

• Steven Berkley
  . The two end up talking and when they are rescued from the lift Lucky goes back to Steven's apartment for breakfast and a change of clothes.
• Steven Berkley, a
  Enzio Bonnatti
  . He ends up trapped in the elevator with Lucky.
• Gino Santangelo was in a plane returning from a seven-year tax exile in Israel when the blackout occurs. His plane is diverted to Philadelphia when in a hotel, a flight attendant tips the press that he is back in the country.
• Dario Santangelo
  is trapped in his own apartment after his male lover takes his keys, his gun, and his knife. Dario is forced to phone Costa in order to escape alive.
• Costa Zennocotti stays in his office after the blackout, not willing to walk down all the stairs and Dario calls him and says that he needs something "arranged". Costa calls
  Sal, a freelance enforcer
  to take out the boy but ends up double-crossing him and kidnapping Dario.
• Carrie Berkley drives to Harlem in her Cadillac Seville to meet a blackmailer, during the blackout she is targeted by a gang of youths who assault her and strip her of her jewelry. She is arrested when she is in the area of the riots and looting, but her husband, Elliot Berkley
  bails her out. The next day, dressed more conservatively, she takes a cab back to Harlem having received another call from the blackmailer.