Newsletter 04/14

April 2014

Spring has finally arrived and I can already feel the return of global warming. It seems to happen every April. Unless you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, where the seasons are reversed and the water in the toilet bowl swirls counterclockwise. It’s worth a trip to Australia to see this.

The Panther paperback has hit the shelves this month, and The Quest trade paperback is coming out June 24th, and can be pre-ordered now. As always, all of my books are available as e-books, audio CDs, or audio downloads.

Also, all of my novels would make great Easter basket stuffers. They’re sugar-free and gluten-free, and are made from only high-fiber paper. Best of all, no trees were cut down to produce the e-books.

On another subject, I was invited by Timothy Cardinal Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, to attend Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on St. Patrick’s Day. So, with my wife and seven-year-old son, we arrived at St. Pat’s at 7:30am and joined the green-accessorized crowd streaming into the Cathedral.

The Cathedral is undergoing a complete restoration and it is scaffolded inside and out, which assured me that the ceiling would not fall on my head as it has on past occasions when I entered a church.

Anyway, it was a beautiful and moving Mass, and the speakers paid tribute to the Irish immigrants who have contributed so much to this country.

After Mass, we went to the Cardinal’s residence for a light breakfast, then out to the steps of the Cathedral to view the parade on Fifth Avenue.

It was a very cold day, and I was reminded of St. Patrick’s Days long ago when I would make sure I was properly fortified with one of those fine products that the Irish have given to America. And I don’t mean Aran sweaters. But on this occasion, with my wife and young son in attendance, and with the Cardinal close by, I left the flask home and kept warm in the glow of the Saint’s Feast Day.

Afterwards, we returned to the Cardinal’s residence for lunch where Irish beer was being served. Halleluiah!

At lunch, I ran into my good friend, Mary Higgins Clark, and her delightful husband, John Conheeney. Mary has been a past Grand Marshall of the parade, and we discussed the fact that I could never be Grand Marshall because I have no Irish blood, notwithstanding the Guinness in my bloodstream.

If you’d like to make a donation to the Saint Patrick’s Cathedral Restoration Fund, please click here.

Also, I should mention that if you buy a copy of my novel, Cathedral, all the royalties I would normally receive go to the Restoration Fund.

The Plum Island TV project continues on track, and I’ve just learned that CBS-TV is interested in airing the series. This is good news in regard to the size of the viewing audience which is much larger on broadcast network TV than it is on cable.

The downside, of course, is that my character of John Corey will have to watch his salty language on broadcast television. There are other limitations on broadcast TV as we know, but on balance this would be a good medium for John because more people will tune in — including, hopefully, his ex-wife and the girlfriends who have dumped him. Living well is the best revenge.

My work-in-progress, titled A Quiet End, is coming along nicely. The book features John Corey, and this time the bad guys are the Russians. Note, I began this book long before Russia annexed Crimea. John, being a very smart man, predicts in this book that the Russians are potentially more of a threat to U.S. security than Islamic terrorists.

Publication of A Quiet End is scheduled for Spring 2015, but I will post a few opening chapters on this website in the next month or two. Hope you enjoy them.

That’s all the news for the month.

To my Christian friends and family, I wish you a happy and blessed Easter. And to my Jewish friends and family, who celebrate Passover, I wish you the same. And for those of mixed heritage, I’ve made up a new phrase — Happy East-Over!

See you next month.

Sincerely,