Review of THE CONFIDENTIAL

There are cop stories and then there are New York cop stories. THE CONFIDENTIAL is a 1973-era cop story based in New York by an ex-New York cop, turned lawyer, and every line evokes images of Robert DeNiro or Al Pacino in top form. Jack Bray knows what he's talking about.
One of the most thankless assignments of any undercover agent is being a part of a sting operation against their own comrades. Dante Falconieri is one of the best undercover guys in the business, but the sting has gone wrong. His career is in limbo. His trophy girlfriend adds to his cynicism. In a rare moment of guy-camaraderie--especially for a loner like Dante--he lets his disillusionment find words and he himself will become the target of a sting operation to test his integrity. Or is it entrapment?
There are stories within stories and author Bray, the former cop and attorney, has the eye and the ear to make it all fit together. It moves fast, and you can visualize it like a movie full of the usual goodfellas and badfellas and a few so-sofellas. There is the cop sting that backfires, the DA's office full of corruption, the overseas drug cartel that gets so fouled up that it will crumble the entire task force, the stings-on-loan against the judges, lawyers and who knows who else-and don't forget the gal on the side.
Poor Dante. He's a man with few friends other than his Italian father--in Italy no less--an ex-cop himself who will come to New York to be "Papa". No wonder Dante is jaded and in desperate need for some time off--hopefully with the trophy gal.
Cop-story lovers will gravitate to THE CONFIDENTIAL like a duck to water. It has everything you would expect: plenty of rough-em-up, more than a handful of rogue cops and other law enforcement types on the take, two--or is it three--murders, a mysterious-but distinctive hit man who doesn't understand the concept of "blend in", a suitcase of marked bills, a complicated foreign drug cartel, drive-by shootings, a clean-up crew of feds, an addict witness who escapes from the Marshals, and the beautiful "cherchez la femme". There are enough twists and turns to make a reader wonder if a) there is anyone like you and b) more importantly, anyone you can trust. Except maybe Papa. The old adage is true: it takes one to know one, and the author certainly has his era, his eye and ear right. He is probably a little kinder to the language than most modern cop writers, but then again, forty years ago, perhaps all of us were a little gentler with our speech. But the descriptions are spot-on, and the type of cases and particularly the overlapping cases, seem to ring true. THE CONFIDENTIAL is a book you don't just read. You can see it and hear it as if it were a movie. THE CONFIDENTIAL by John A Bray available at all online booksellers, both in paper and as an e-book.

promo for new mystery anthology from ITW

Love Is Murder anthology from ITW

http://youtu.be/ZCJcU7PYJ4Y book trailer
 

 http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-7783-1344-1

 great review fro Publisher's Weekly

See next entry to pre-order the book

pre-order New Mystery anthology from ITW

http://thrillerwriters.org/2012/02/love-is-murder-anthology-edited-by-sandra-brown-now-available-for-preorder/

George McAleer, S.J.

Father McAleer swept into our classroom with a theatrical flourish on the first morning of our sophomore year in high school and whirled to face us sitting at our desks. He peered gimlet-eyed over his rimless glasses perched near the end of his sharply pointed nose. Most of our section had been assigned to Father’s class because they had done exceptionally well in freshman year and were now to commence their accelerated courses beginning with introductory Greek. The rest of us, those whose freshman efforts were somewhat more modest, were relegated to the study course. This simply meant that when our intellectual betters were learning the rudiments of Greek grammar we lesser lights would repair to a different classroom and get an extra helping of Latin. This delineation was to be our first, but not last, introduction to the Jesuit method of intellectual as well as social class distinction.

He wore a heavy black cape across his shoulders, fastened at the neck over a cinctured black cassock.  As he leaned on his cane he undid the clasp holding the cape, and with a sweep of his hand, hung the cape on the hook behind the classroom door. His clerical hat sat atop his head at a rakish angle. His eyes never left the class as he removed his biretta, the traditional headgear of the priests of that era, unadorned except for the three curved projections on the crown and hung it on the door hook.

“Some of you,” he began, “are assigned to this class because they did not have room in the other study classes. But everyone here will do the same work as everyone else. You will all do admirably I’m sure, you will do the work assigned and no one will be relegated to the study class.”

A short, slightly stooped man, round-shouldered and small-framed, his deeply furrowed face and coarse, grayish-black hair gave testimony to his age, which we estimated to be about mid-fifties. His accent was cultured British, but his mannerisms, to our untutored minds, seemed somehow mildly eccentric. English bred and educated, his demeanor was that of a droll, erudite university professor. Later in the term he told us he was born on the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea. This exotic birthplace possibly accounted for his hard-to-place accent and odd turn of speech. Father continued to gaze around the room over his spectacles.

“I, as you will undoubtedly learn, am also the school librarian. Therefore, I do expect the students in my class to take full advantage of that facility. No one has a rounded education without an extensive reading habit. Let me add as well, that when you are a visitor in my library you will be appropriately respectful of Cat.”

“Cat,” we later determined, was his oversized pet, its fur the color of new snow, regarding the world with an insolent, green-eyed glower.

 Father concealed his kind and caring nature beneath a veneer of understated British wit with a slightly ironic edge.  Fond of pet names, he would call upon us in class thus: “I say, do rise and face the class.” He brandished his blackboard pointer with an expansive gesture, like the conductor of a symphony orchestra. “Be a stout lad and decline for us aloud the Greek verb to stop, if you please.”

 When our classes ended that first day, Father retrieved his cape and with a dramatic swirl, refastened it. He replaced his biretta, slightly askew atop his head, and looked at us over his spectacles. With cane and briefcase in hand, he opened the door, “On the morrow then,” he said, “Cheerio.”

 

Back cover blurb for Code Name: Caleb

Young and penniless Johnny Madigan lied about his age to become a Union Soldier. And after surviving serious injury on the Civil War’s most notorious and blood-soaked killing fields, was recruited to work under cover to infiltrate Confederate spy rings.

In this sequel to the acclaimed Ballad of Johnny Madigan, Johnny – older than his years, but much younger than believed by the army, battle-hardened and a master of espionage – is sent back to New York to penetrate an underground counterfeiting gang supplying forged US currency the enemy South.

His assignment takes him to Canada where a murderous Confederate spy ring is plotting an armed uprising to take over New York City and hold it hostage.

Johnny’s dream is to return to childhood sweetheart, Deidre, who kept him alive as a destitute youth in the city’s slums, but there is more than the daily risk of sudden death keeping him from her as he enters the very heart of the conspiracy. Suspected by some plotters, he is seduced by a beautiful woman – herself a key member of the gang – whose orders are to expose him.

Will the war-toughened, but still romantically naïve, Johnny see through sexy Letitia’s love ploy to complete and survive his vital mission and to be re-united with Deidre, or can the conspirators lower his guard with Letitia’s wily help, make their bold, history-changing plan succeed … and see Johnny dead?

John Bray’s immaculately researched and race-paced ‘Code Name: Caleb’ thrusts the reader into the murky depths of intrigue, plot and counter-plot that became the dark underside of the War Between the States.  

endsit. neil

THE CONFIDENTIAL

 THE CONFIDENTIAL

Dante Falconieri lives in the murky shadows, assigned to the dirtiest undercover job of all … trapping cops on the take from crime lords.

Dante is the guardian who guards the guardians.

But who guards Dante, the lone wolf and the wild card?

He’s cynical and disillusioned. His promotion’s stalled. He craves to return to the narcotics stings that made him the finest of Federal Drug Enforcement Administration. He’s weary and needs a vacation. His cop-on-cop busts have led him to mistrust his bosses, their bosses, his closest partners, district attorneys, and the Joint Federal, State and City Task Force to which he’s assigned for the biggest sting of all.

His trophy girlfriend needs much more than his DEA pay check can buy. And what comfort he has left – this all-consuming passion for Mina – is threatened by his code of secrecy, his unexplained, mysterious midnight disappearances from her bed at a bleep of his phone, and his shallow pockets.

His mind and his devotion to justice are showing cracks as subtly visible as those that felled the House of Usher.

Can Dante himself be trusted, or can he be turned to the dark side by the very villains he’s dedicated his life to putting behind bars … or consigning to hell? They’re trying hard, and disheartened Dante is a desperate man. Open to temptation?

Author John Bray is a 17-year NYPD vet, who retired as a lieutenant, attorney and prosecutor in their internal disciplinary system. He became a crime lawyer before becoming a full-time author. He knows what makes the man who is coded by investigation-hardened insiders as ‘The Confidential’.

This Byzantine tale of intrigue and cunning deception twists and turns at every flip of the page, building to a climax that will leave you wiser -- wise enough to be scared stiff. Dante is a beautifully flawed anti-hero … an irresistible character you’d never want to meet, but who you can’t wait to read more of.

endsit. nm

Intrigue, mystery, police procedural, corruption, betrayal, loyalty, suspense, crime, espionage

The difficulty in literature is not to write, but to write what you mean.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Scottish essayist, author and poet (1850-1894)

Every author who has set pen to paper or keyboard to blank screen feels the anguish of communicating with words that which is in their mind. To be misunderstood is a painful arrow through the heart. Everyone who is literate may assay to put their thoughts and feelings to paper. Not every attempt at setting forth one’s innermost cerebrations, (a ten dollar word) will meet with success. Often, we know, the selection of just the right word makes the difference between having the reader intuit our meaning or have the effort miss the mark.

To that end may I make a suggestion? Writer’s Digest Magazine recommended a website called MasterWriter 2.0. It not only provides an instant thesaurus (that’s how I found ‘cerebration’), and dictionary, but various writing hints, some of which are: suggested projects, word families, phrases, parts of speech, rhymes and pop culture. Of course, we have Roget’s Thesaurus right to hand, and some of us may use The Synonym Finder, by J.I. Rodale, a somewhat more complete listing of word alternatives. However, once MasterWriter is downloaded to your computer it is available at the click of the mouse while your writing is in progress. One needn’t stop to open a book and leaf through pages.

One caution, MasterWriter does require an expenditure of money, but can be accessed initially for a thirty day trial period. Stuck for an idea? Looking for the correct concept to freshen your story? Not sure of the meaning or correct spelling of a word? A search in one of these categories could jump start a story gone flat or which you have written into a corner. Finding just the word we are looking for may enable us to do the most difficult: say what we mean.