NYPD Cold Case #15-003 'The Crazy 8 Cowboys' - Cover Reveal

Well, the release date is almost here and I thought I would share the cover for the latest Detective Angelo Antonucci NYPD Cold Case novella. The e-book will be released on the Amazon Kindle platform.

As previously mentioned, with the addition of this book in the Cold Case lineup, I will be creating a print version for of you who enjoy having a book in your hand. It will include all three of the current Cold Case stories.

The Crazy 8 Cowboys revolves around the disappearance of an confidential informant that went missing during a narcotics investigation focused on the Eight-Eight Precinct in Brooklyn North. When a decade old body is discovered, Antonucci is tasked with finding out who was responsible for the disappearance; a list which includes the informant’s ex-wife, members of the command, and the Internal Affairs Bureau, who were heading the investigation.

I hope you will enjoy it.

Cold Case - Book #3 (Update)

I know a lot of you have been wondering when the next book would be coming out and I am happy to say: SOON !!

NYPD Detective Angelo Antonucci has become a favorite, and you won’t have to wait too much longer. The book is complete and is in the editing phase. During this time I will work on the cover artwork and it is my goal to have it available before the end of this month. For those of you who prefer printed books over the digital medium, I have good news for you as well. Coinciding with the release of this book will be a print issue featuring all three Cold Case books in one edition.

For those of you waiting for the next Alex Taylor novel, I am currently working on the final details of the plot progression. I hope to start the actual writing process beginning in February.

I want to apologize that there was only one new book in 2020: Awakening, but I think we can all admit that 2020 was a rough year for most of us. On top of that, I felt it was important to focus on the re-release of my updated book: Where Was God? which now includes two new chapters.  

I thank you all for your patience and continued support during these trying times.

As always, if you haven’t signed up for my newsletter, please do so on the CONTACT page.

Best wishes & stay safe,

Banned: 1984 Is Here

Breaking News: “Social media platform suspends Greek philosopher Aristotle for perpetuating the dangerous belief that the world is round, risking the lives of countless sailors.”

If you read that article today, you’d think it was from The Onion, yet the sad reality is that we are living through events future historians will judge harshly. As of yesterday, Twitter has suspended the President of the United States. Some may bemoan this while others cheer, but I see it as the start of a terrible precedent.

The reason I am writing this is that I am an author and I feel the need to take a stand against the insanity that seems to rage around us in the form of cancel culture and censorship. In a way, I feel that I am fortunate that I am on the back end of life, because those who are just starting out will have a bleak future if this madness continues.

I grew up reading in one form or another; comic books, magazines, and books littered my room. Okay, truth is they were all neatly arranged in chronological or alphabet order, but that is a topic for a different day. The point is, I read a lot. In fact, many of the books I read in school are now being banned. Classic reads such as To Kill a Mocking Bird, Of Mice and Men, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Catcher in the Rye, and Animal Farm. The latter I can appreciate, as it is a warning of the dystopian times we currently live in and we can’t risk people waking up to their own demise.

How long before The Great Gatsby, Catch-22, or 1984 make the list?

Oops, just checked and 1984 is banned. Life comes at you fast.

As an author, I am appalled at the growing calls for censorship, especially when it comes from those in my field.  At what point do we wake up and see the folly of our actions, or will we? When the mob gets done with the low hanging fruit, those things we seem to find easily objectionable, will they then pursue loftier goals? Will orders come from on high that quantify what we as authors can write? Will authors who write about a different gender, race, or creed be ostracized for having the audacity to write outside their lane?

Don’t think this will happen? Think again. I belong to several substantive industry groups, and this subject has already reared its ugly head on several occasions. Heated debate has risen on what some authors should and shouldn’t do. It seems farcical, but how long before it gains traction and becomes mainstream thinking?

My principal character in the James Maguire series is a man of Irish descent and a member of the NYPD. I should be safe with him, but what about Alex Taylor? Will I be banned from writing any future stories because she is a female and I don’t meet the gender threshold? How about Angelo Antonucci, since I’m not Italian? I guess I’m really screwed with my latest book, Awakening, which is a vampire saga.

The point is, censorship, in any form, is wrong.

Years ago, I read Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. I did so as a historian who wanted to understand the inner workings of the man who brought so much pain and death into the world. You can also add Otto Skorzeny, Reinhard Heydrich, Heinrich Himmler, and others. I’ve also read books on several American luminaries such as Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt. Complex men who may invoke equally complex feelings depending on what side of an issue you find yourself on, but isn’t that what a book should do? To make you think?

As an author, I feel it is my obligation to make you feel something when you read my books. I want to take you to a place that causes you to think. One of the greatest compliments I ever received was when a reader told me she had cried over a character. What’s that you say? You cry over characters all the time? That’s awesome, but did I forget to mention that this character was a terrorist?

Life is complicated and we do ourselves a terrible disservice when we try to sanitize it. Echo chambers are not healthy, nor do they stimulate thought and reason.

The actions being taken today, under the seemingly benign guise of tolerance and diversity, do not differ from what the aforementioned Hitler did. It’s ironic that those screaming ‘fascist’ the loudest are engaging in the same fascist actions they apparently abhor.

Mark Twain famously said, “It’s better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than open your mouth and remove all doubt.” I would argue that it is better to open one’s mouth, and let others judge you for the content of your argument, than it is to keep your mouth shut just to appease the intellectually stunted.

Sadly, many in my field disagree with that sentiment, and that should worry you.

We often take the literary genre of Satire for granted.  Historically, it has satisfied a need to debunk or ridicule those in politics, religion, and other figures of power. Some of you may have even read the book ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes,’ by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen, but did you know he wrote another book called ‘The Swineherd’? Both of the aforementioned books were satirical. The former pointed to the courtly pride and intellectual vanity of the king who’d been fooled by two weavers that gave him invisible clothes. Everyone went along with the charade, because he was the king, except for a young boy who could see he had no clothes. In the latter, a poor prince is rebuffed by a princess and takes a role as a commoner who provides the princess beautiful gifts in exchange for kisses. When her father the king finds out she is kissing a commoner, he throws her out. The prince then washes his face, puts on his royal attire, and spurns her. In both instances, the high and mighty receive their comeuppance, but there is more to the story.

After writing those satirical works, Anderson purportedly received a gift of a ruby and diamond ring from the Danish king.  After receiving the ring, he never wrote another satirical story. In fact, he went on to pen The Ugly Duckling, a transformative story that many consider to be analogous to Andersen himself. Some suggest the ring was a successful attempt to curb Andersen’s political satire and successfully bring him into the royal fold.

Is that what we are seeing today? I believe so.

Those in the creative arts, whether writers, actors, comedians, have always been at the vanguard of not only entertaining us, but making us uncomfortable at times.  Lately, this group seems to grow more angry and inclined to demand that you conform to their world views. If you do not, you subject yourself to cancel culture. This is a very scary place to be. If we can’t write what we are motivated to, what is the point?

Consider what happened to literary titan, J. K. Rowling, last summer. Ms. Rowling tweeted something which was deemed to be anti ‘LGBT’ and the cancel culture mob immediately descended on her. Interestingly enough, two of the people leading the charge were Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson, the two actors who achieved incredible success playing characters from Ms. Rowling’s books. Let me say at the outset that I am not a fan of Ms. Rowling, and I have found myself in disagreement with her positions in the past, however I respect her work as an author. I feel no need to cheer for her opponents and no desire to cancel her for her opinions. It’s called being an adult. If I find something to be distasteful to me, or something that goes against my beliefs, I simply do not support it, but I certainly don’t go out to the village square and demand that everyone else conform to my positions or else. Yet that is what we are currently seeing in our society.

I am merely an entertainer; my opinions and positions are no greater, nor any less, than yours.

Yes, my books contain positions and topics that often coincide with my own, but they also contain elements that go against some of my beliefs.  I push myself as often as I hope I push you. I will never write what is safe. For me to do that, I would simply have three blank chapters in every book: The Beginning, Things Happened, The End; and you would be left to fill in what you preferred to read. Not exactly an edge-of-your-seat thriller.

Maybe it’s time that we all just go back to being examples of courtesy and respect, instead of being harbingers of our own demise.

Do you believe in Jesus?

I know; it’s a strange question.

I imagine many people cringe when they hear it, including people who consider themselves Christians. Are you dealing with a ‘Jesus nut’ or one of those right-wing extremists? Contrast that with the multitude of questions you get asked daily and ask yourself why this one makes you feel uncomfortable.

You see, they have conditioned us to believe that we should hide our religion. I’ve heard all the excuses: ‘You need to be tolerant,’ ‘It will make people uncomfortable,’ and the infamous, ‘Separation of church and state.’ I’m kind of embarrassed to admit that at many junctures of my life, especially with my time in the NYPD, I have fallen into one of these scenarios. I’m guessing most of us have, but should we hide our faith?

Matthew 5:15-16 says, “Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”

As Christians, we are not called to be timid, but to preach the Gospel, yet we live in a secular world and many put God behind their ambitions. We don’t want to upset friends or family, we don’t want to get in trouble at work, we don’t want to inhibit our personal ambitions, or we don’t want to offend any influential people.

As an author, I get it. Some of you may know that there was a time I was vocal about my political views. I toned that down when I began writing, because I didn’t want to offend any readers. It’s advice that I strongly recommend, yet too few seem to take it.

But, and this is a big but, there is an enormous difference between politics and religion.

Politics is temporal, religion is eternal.

I’m sure many reading this are wondering, ‘Where the heck is he going with this?’

Recent global events have caused me to take a pause and really consider the times we are living in. Some reading this post might know that I wrote a book titled: Where was God? An NYPD first responder’s search for answers following the terror attack of September 11th 2001. It’s available on Amazon and you can click the link if you’re interested in picking it up. I just added two new chapters and 100% of the royalties goes to charity. The reason I mention it is that the book had originally started off as my 9/11 journey, but quickly turned into an investigation of whether there was even a God to blame. My conclusion was not only that God is real, but that He is very much in control. I mean, He is the great I Am, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent.

I noticed that with everything going on in the world some people, myself included, were beginning to question whether we are living in the prophesied end times. I don’t consider myself a conspiracy theorist, I spent too many years doing investigations and focusing on facts, and I try to always take a sober approach to every issue. After making the case for Christ, it forced me to take a substantive look at what we are told in the Bible.

If you examine the Old Testament, you see that it prophecies about the coming Messiah. Now we must remember something here. If Jesus was real, and I established in my book He was, then the circumstances such as His birthplace, His ancestry, and the method of His death, were beyond His control if He was simply a mortal man and not the promised Messiah.

For a moment, consider the following passages: (Old Testament & Corresponding New Testament verses)

Messiah would be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2 / Matthew 2:1 Luke 2:4-6)

Messiah would be born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14 / Matthew 1:22-23 Luke 1:26-31)

Messiah would come from the line of Abraham (Genesis 12:3 Genesis 22:18 / Matthew 1:1 Romans 9:5)

Messiah would be a descendant of Isaac (Genesis 17:19 Genesis 21:12 / Luke 3:34)

Messiah would be a descendant of Jacob (Numbers 24:17 / Matthew 1:2)

Messiah would spend a season in Egypt (Hosea 11:1 / Matthew 2:14-15)

A massacre of children would happen at Messiah's birthplace (Jeremiah 31:15 / Matthew 2:16-18)

A messenger would prepare the way for Messiah (Isaiah 40:3-5 / Luke 3:3-6)

Messiah would be rejected by His own people (Psalm 69:8 Isaiah 53:3 / John 1:11 John 7:5)

Messiah would bring light to Galilee (Isaiah 9:1-2 / Matthew 4:13-16)

Messiah would be a sacrifice for sin (Isaiah 53:5-6 / Romans 5:6-8)

Messiah would be crucified with criminals (Isaiah 53:8-9 / Matthew 27:38 Mark 15:27-28)

Messiah would resurrect from the dead (Psalm 16:10 Psalm 49:15 / Matthew 28:2-7 Acts 2:22-32)

Messiah would ascend to heaven (Psalm 24:7-10 / Mark 16:19 Luke 24:51)

Back in the 1952, Peter Stoner, who was a former chairman of the Department of Mathematics and Astronomy at Pasadena City College, and later Professor Emeritus of Science at Westmont College, along with Robert C. Newman, who was a physicist who studied at Cornell with Carl Sagan, published a book titled, Science Speaks. In their book, the authors discussed the statistical improbability of one man, whether accidentally or deliberately, fulfilling just eight of the prophecies Jesus fulfilled. Remember, I gave you fourteen, six more than they considered. Their conclusion was that the chance of this happening was 1 in 1017th power.

Now, if you are like me, you really don’t grasp the enormity of the ‘math’ and this was apparently something they realized as well. Fortunately for us, the authors gave an illustration to help us visualize the magnitude of such odds: “Suppose that we take 1017th silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas. They will cover all of the state two feet deep. Now mark one of these silver dollars and stir the whole mass thoroughly, all over the state. Blindfold a man and tell him that he can travel as far as he wishes, but he must pick up one silver dollar and say that this is the right one. What chance would he have of getting the right one? Just the same chance that the prophets would have had of writing these eight prophecies and having them all come true in any one man, from their day to the present time, providing they wrote using their own wisdom.”

I gave you fourteen, just to go slightly above the eight, but I could easily give you another two dozen examples of Old Testament prophecy being fulfilled in the New Testament. In fact, some Bible scholars put the number of prophetic scripture at over 300. Simply put, it is impossible beyond calculation. Many will scoff, many will try to attack it, or claim some other reason, but even if you only focus on the sheer volume of prophesy Christ fulfilled, from the time of His baptism by John to His death and resurrection, it is beyond argument.

So if God is real and the Bible is real and Jesus is real, where does that leave us?

As the title of this post asks, ‘Do you believe in Jesus?’

Believe it or not, for many it is not a simple question. The Bible says in James 2:19, “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that — and shudder.”

Many have read the Bible and heard the Gospel preached, but do they truly believe in Jesus?

Knowing He exists means nothing. Satan knew Jesus existed; he tested Him in the wilderness. (Luke 4:1-13)

My fear, watching what is going on in the world today, is that too many people know about Jesus, but few believe in Him. We have given our lives over to the secular world, to the exclusion of the spiritual one, but the Bible is very explicit as to what will happen to the world at the end of days and it is not pretty.

“And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.” Revelation 9:6

If we are indeed entering into the ends of times, and from what I can see the argument for that is pretty strong, then it is incumbent on us to make some decisions. We must choose whether we are going to put our faith into God’s word, or roll the dice. The Bible makes it clear that when the end does come, many are going to be caught off guard.

Matthew 24:36 says, “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only.”

1 Thessalonians 5:2 says, “For you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.”

If you are watching the events unfolding in the world, it behooves the believer to get his act together and become a voice for the Lord, so that others will find salvation.

Jesus said, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:16

If you are not a believer, then you probably are asking yourself, ‘How does this impact me?’

Well, to put it bluntly, ‘Just because you don’t believe in God, doesn’t mean that He doesn’t believe in you.”

Romans 2:8 says, “But he will pour out his anger and wrath on those who live for themselves, who refuse to obey the truth and instead live lives of wickedness.”

As a former law enforcement officer, let me put it this way: Say you are a criminal, a burglar for that matter, and you are really good at what you do. You are always cautious and you’ve gotten away with your crimes. It’s 11pm and you just settled in for a good night’s sleep, dreaming of your next job. Unbeknownst to you, there’s a SWAT team coming to pay you a visit at 2am, because on your last heist you failed to notice the little spy cam hidden in that teddy bear. You think you got away with it; you don’t think they are coming, but they are.

God’s judgement is going to come on the world and it will be severe. I tremble to think of what life will be like during those days, and I’m happy that I won’t be around to see it. I know you’re probably wondering what that means. The fact is, those who believe in Christ as their Lord and Savior have been forgiven of their sins. In fact, the whole purpose of Jesus coming into this world was to save mankind.

John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

And the gift of salvation is just that, a gift. The Apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians 2:8-9, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.”

From the beginning we have all fallen short through sin. We have all turned away from God and there was nothing we could ever do to make ourselves holy. So God saved us despite what we had become, through His mercy, and His gift. All we have to do is accept it.

If you have never believed in Jesus, and want to experience the ultimate gift from God in your life, it’s actually quite easy. Think of it like the ABC’s.

Admit you are a sinner: This is where that Godly sorrow leads to genuine repentance for sinning against a righteous God.

Believe in your heart that Jesus Christ died for your sins, was buried, and that God raised Him up from the dead. This is trusting with all of your heart that Jesus was who He said He was.

Call upon the name of the Lord. Every single person who ever lived, since Adam, will bend their knee and confess with their mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord, the Lord of lords and King of kings.

(ABC’s of salvation, courtesy: https://calvarychapelkaneohe.com/abc-of-salvation)

You say that it is too simple? Okay, is its simplicity such that you won’t accept it? Does that mean when someone offers you a gift, something you have always wanted, whether for your birthday or in celebration of some event, that you refuse it because it is just too simple, or do you accept it with gratefulness because they loved you enough to give you what you wanted?

God’s ready to give you the ultimate gift, all you have to do is accept it from Him.

If you already believe, than you need to turn your focus on bringing others to Christ and that is not through hiding your faith, but living it.

We may not know the day or the hour, but it is coming and we need to be prepared.

In His holy name,

Re-Release: Where Was God? Updated Content

I wanted to let everyone know that I just re-released by book: Where Was God? An NYPD first responder’s search for answers following the terror attack of September 11th 2001

This 2nd edition features two new chapters dealing with the current Corona Virus (COVID-19) Pandemic and the Book of Job. I felt I was missing out on an opportunity to speak to people who might be struggling emotionally and spiritually with the wake of devastation left by this virus. The addition of the examination of the Book of Job came after a recent Bible study and it felt particularly relevant when we are seeking answers during times of suffering.

The updated versions should be available shortly on Amazon: Where Was God?

This edition also features a revised list of the men and women of the NYPD who have lost their battle to 9/11 illnesses.  Sadly, this year marks the 19th anniversary of the attack. On the day of the attack, the NYPD lost 23 members in the line of duty; since that day we have lost a staggering 242 more from the toxins they ingested and that number will only continue to rise; a situation made even worse by the health effects of COVID-19.

As an added reminder, 100% of the royalties from this book are donated to charities / organizations that further God’s work. From the very first day we made a commitment that, since this work was divinely inspired, we not profit from its message.  

In times of tragedy or suffering it can feel as if we are alone, but we are not. God is always with us.

John 16:33 – “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”