STORY MERCHANT CLIENT DENNIS WALSH'S NOBODY WALKS STELLAR REVIEW ON KIRKUS

NOBODY WALKS Bringing My Brother's Killers to Justice 

Author: Walsh, Dennis M.
Review Issue Date: December 1, 2012
Pages: 304 Price ( Hardcover ): $26.99
Publication Date: February 5, 2013
ISBN ( Hardcover ): 978-1-250-00548-9
Category: Nonfiction

 Pulpy, engrossing account of losing a family member to a senseless murder and retribution delivered through the criminal justice system. Attorney Walsh was the only one among his four brothers to follow the straight-and-narrow path, perhaps due to the example set by their father, a Cleveland cop turned mobster. But none of them were prepared for the death of Chris, the youngest, at the hands of fellow denizens of the meth-and-gangs subculture on the fringes of Southern California’s pornography business. Walsh lived a sibling’s nightmare, asked to identify Chris’ decaying body. Street gossip quickly pinpointed the killer, David Steinberg, Chris’ former roommate, who was an associate of white supremacist prison gangs. Despite fears that he might pre-emptively sabotage eventual prosecution, Walsh began sniffing around Chris’ friends, a motley group of drug users, porn stars and entertainment-industry hangers-on. Many agreed to cooperate with him, given the implied threat of his more criminally inclined brothers’ thirst for vengeance. The narrative is sensibly straightforward, following the turns as police, prosecutors and Walsh make efforts to gather evidence on, arrest and successfully prosecute Steinberg and his cronies. As the author himself might agree, he is in some ways too close to the material. The narrative is populated by a surfeit of underworld figures who don’t really come alive as fully developed characters, but instead seem caricatures of seamy decrepitude. Still, Walsh captures the arc of his family’s involvement in an act of senseless malice, calling into question the cultural endurance of macho violence within certain subcultures and the difficulty of holding men responsible for horrific acts within the legal system’s overtaxed framework. Gritty, effective, personalized tale of the outlaw lifestyle and its consequences.

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Gabookguy Reviews Dead Peasants

“Dead Peasants” by Larry D. Thompson
published by Thomas Dunne Books.

Category – Mystery/Thriller

When I first saw the title of this book I thought it must be the story of a medieval King killing off his serfs.  The term “dead peasants” is actually a legal insurance term for when an employer takes out an insurance policy on his workers and continues to pay the premiums even after his dismissal or retirement.  The employer hopes to collect the benefits upon the person’s death.  This practice has been deemed illegal in most states.

Jack Bryant is a high profile lawyer who has just won a monumental decision that will allow him to retire.  He moves back to his hometown of Fort Worth, Texas.

He purchases a mansion and falls in love with his realtor but the relationship must remain plutonic as his realtor is hiding something from her past.

Jack finds life a little boring and opens up a “pro bono” business.  One of these cases has Jack, his son, and his realtor looking into several unexplained deaths in the surrounding area.  They all seem to have a common thread and several attempts are made on their lives.

This is a great story for those who like a good lawyer based book that has both courtroom drama and old fashion “gum shoe” investigation. The book is well written and suitable for any audience.

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NEW DISCIPLINE FROM JEFF RIVERA FREE TO STORY MERCHANT FRIENDS

Success as a writer is 90% work and 10% talent.  No matter how talented you are, if you do not do the work, if you do not roll up your sleeves, none of your dreams for greatness as a writer can ever come true. That's just reality.

The challenge is that today's writer is, quite frankly, distracted. It goes beyond simply wanting to wash your windows and walk the dog instead of writing.

Nowadays, the biggest time zapper is the Internet. Whether it's Facebook, Twitter or checking your email 400 times a day, every second you're playing on the Internet is one step further from your goal as a writer. In my book, A Writer's Time: Making the Time to Write, I talk about how imperative this step is.

That's why when I was introduced to a new tool my good friend Jeff Rivera is beta-testing, I had to share it with you. It is a software that will prevent you from using the Internet without finishing your daily word count. 

If you're serious about your commitment to writing, I highly recommend it. 

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Book Daily's Today's Emerging Author Features The Messiah Matrix ... Read Sample Chapter

The Messiah Matrix

Anyone passing Ryan McKeown, S.J., on his morning walk down Rome’s Janiculum, would have witnessed a worried-looking young man with dark shadows under his eyes. His usual composed countenance had disappeared and his furrowed brow revealed the burden he now bore. Images of the penitent’s death plagued him, more so because of the man’s extraordinary confession and enigmatic last words, “Find Father Ryan…memory in ashes of Jasius…in the Gesù.” Why did this mysterious monsignor use his last breath to deliver this strange message to his killer? What was he trying to tell me?

It was appalling even to entertain the thought that Holy Mother Church might have ordered the killing of a monsignor. It was just too horrible to contemplate. Surely the Albanian was mistaken?

Not only was he wrestling with the shock of dual murders but Ryan’s doubts about his faith now consumed his every waking moment and haunted his nights. It was mind versus spirit, and the mind threatened to destroy every feeling his spirit flourished on. Ryan’s mind was filled with a jumble of questions in a jumble of languages—English, commendably fluent Italian, and an ancient dialect insiders would readily identify as the vulgar Latin spoken almost exclusively at the highest ecclesiastical levels in Vatican City.

The names flashing through his brain—Eusebius, Philo Judaeus, Lactantius, Origen, Tertullian—were an esoteric litany of historians, poets, biblical scholars, and philosophers—all from the infancy of Christianity. Ryan’s obsession with tracking down the origins of the Catholic faith permeated his consciousness.

The area spanned by Via Garibaldi was a living postcard of tiled roofs, bell towers, cupolas and gardens set off in breathtaking contrast against the cloudless turquoise sky. But this morning the young American priest, lost in ruminations about the fateful confession and his biblical doubts, had been oblivious to the spectacular view--and to the breeze ruffling his curly brown hair to more than usual disarray. It would be difficult to recognize Ryan as a recently ordained priest in his casual street clothes and comfortable black Reeboks, much less one enrolled in the pontifically authorized Society of Jesus, known to the world as “Jesuits.”

Ryan’s questions about troubling inconsistencies in traditional Catholic doctrine had only grown more confusing as he’d turned from his graduate studies of the Latin epic poet Virgil to a temporary stint teaching a course on early Christian theology at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. At that time he was a Jesuit scholastic, getting in-the-classroom experience, and testing the demands of his calling. Now that his priesthood had been consecrated through the sacrament of Holy Orders and he had been dispatched to the Eternal City to study the New Testament and its commentaries, Father McKeown’s personal doubts and scholarly perplexities were, he feared, all too close to becoming a neurotic disorder.

“How can I accept ordination with all this uncertainty?” he’d once asked his confessor, a functional octogenarian alcoholic, one of the cadre of emeriti that staffed the Woodstock seminary.

“How do you feel about your faith?” the old man asked.

“I feel wonderful,” Ryan admitted. “When I smell the incense in the presence of the Holy Sacrament, I feel…holy…I feel right.”

“Then act as if you were certain,” the old priest had advised. “It is a corollary of Pascal’s wager. There’s no such thing in this world as absolute certainty. So accept that and go forward acting toward the best outcome no matter what.”

As the days before his ordination became cluttered with crucial commitments and endless ceremonies, Ryan found he had no more time to entertain his uncertainties. The trouble with me, he ruminated, is that I’ve always had too little time—for everything. Things just keep happening before I’ve got them figured out. He’d always wished there could be an off-calendar eighth day of the week to do nothing but consolidate what you actually think, hopefully believe, and truly feel.

It was all, to Ryan, a bit overwhelming—especially for a young man who was still intent on figuring out, one piece at a time, the immense puzzle that was the Roman Catholic Church, the religion into which he had been involuntarily baptized as an infant, willy-nilly confirmed as an adolescent, and hesitantly ordained as a priest of its most militant order.

Now it was too late, as far as the priesthood was concerned. He had been confirmed in that direction and, following his old confessor’s advice, determined to make the best of it. To his grateful surprise, even after his ordination his immediate superiors not only encouraged him to continue following his scholarly nose investigating the origins of the Church, but had also mysteriously arranged the residency in Rome.

Whenever his scholarly path seemed to disappear before his eyes, he returned to the simple basic questions that had inspired this quest: How could it be that Theophilus, one of the earliest Christian apologists, wrote nearly 30,000 words about Christianity without once mentioning Jesus Christ? How come the name “Jesus Christ,” in fact, doesn’t appear in any Greek or Latin author until after the Council of Nicaea? Why was it that the only near-contemporary account that mentioned Christ, a suspiciously precise paragraph known as the Testimonium Flavianum, in Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews, had been proved to be a patent insertion into that historical narrative? How could Jesus have been born in 1 A.D. when the Gospels say he was born before Herod the Great died—and King Herod’s death could be pinpointed to 4 B.C.? Even Philip Cardinal Vasta, now known to the world as Pope Pius XIII, had lamented that the greatest obstacle for spreading the Catholic faith today was that the historical existence of Jesus could no longer be made credible. If Ryan could somehow find a way to stamp a measure of documented authenticity on the career of the Church’s founder, he would be serving the Holy Father as well as his own wavering vocation. If he could make that tangible contribution to the church, he might justify his own doubt-ridden existence and give himself a break.

If he could find evidence to prove objectively that Jesus really existed as a human being, he’d be able to reconcile all the contradictions. Without that proof certain—that had eluded scholars for some two thousand years—every thread of the tapestry of biblical scholarship became just another loose end and his profession based on an allegory at best, at worst, a phantom.

Continues...

Clint Hill

Suspense Magazine Reviews Story Merchant Client Dennis M. Walsh's Nobody Walks

“Nobody Walks: Bringing My Brother’s Killers to Justice” by Dennis M. Walsh

Every once in a great while, a true crime is written that pulls at the heartstrings, while it also provides a tale of suspense that will be remembered for a good long time. This is that story.

The complete and utter anguish of a family that loses a son and brother is the subject that this author takes on. Being a criminal defense attorney, Mr. Walsh valiantly tells the story in true ‘Technicolor,’ of his youngest brother’s death and how the family came together, stayed within the law and were able to bring the killers to justice.
It was 2003, when Christopher Walsh was found in a storage locker stuffed into a trash can. As most often happens, the murder investigation slowed down and almost came to a standstill. It took seven long months for the authorities to file charges, and many years to get the case to trial.

When the body was first found, Dennis Walsh announced to one and all that he would keep his brother’s murder alive and not let it become a cold case. And truer words had never been spoken. As the story unfolds, readers see that the Walsh family was close, but unfortunately the father—once a policeman—left the force and got involved with the underworld along with the rest of his sons, except for Dennis. It seems that Dennis was the only son who did not turn to an unsavory path that would make him a criminal. Perhaps that was fate working, considering Dennis took the job of solving his brother’s murder upon his shoulders, and went from suspect to suspect asking questions, becoming one with the jail birds and the people who put them there, without breaking the law.

This is a very heart-wrenching story of a family that made sure justice was served, and readers will find themselves rooting for Dennis from the very beginning.

Brett Battle's New Novel Ashes Now Available!

NOW OUT Project Eden No. 4 ASHES

ASHES | Project Eden No. 4 The Saga Continues... The hammer has fallen. The deadly Sage Flu has been unleashed. The scramble for survival is in full force. Martina Gable and her family escaped to a secluded mountain cabin in hopes of avoiding the death sweeping the desert valley below, but have they gone far enough? Dominic Ray, manager of a tropical, private island resort, has a dream job. The weather, the food, the drinks, the people—life couldn't be better. What he didn’t expect—what no one could have expected—was that his good life was about to disappear. In a sea of the sick and dying, Sanjay and Kusum desperately search for a place beyond Mumbai where they and the group they are leading can be safe, and where they can prepare for what the future may bring. Brandon Ash wants nothing more than to be with his father and sister, but there is something waiting for him on a deserted, snow-covered highway. Something that may mean the reunion will never happen. As Daniel Ash, Brandon's father, lies unconscious from the serious wounds he suffered while hunting for his son, his daughter Josie realizes it's up to her to find her brother and bring him home. But the search will be a dangerous one, that will take her far from home. And then there is Project Eden, watching the plague kill as they had planned, even as they prepare to activate the next phase. What will you do to survive? Ashes is best read after completing volumes 1-3 (Sick, Exit 9, and Pale Horse) Where to find ASHES: Kindle US  •  Nook  Kindle UK  •  Kindle Germany • Kindle France  Kindle Spain  •  Kindle Italy • Kindle Japan Check Amazon and Barnes & Noble in the  next week or so for the trade paperback version.

49 years after JFK assassination, former Secret Service agent Clint Hill recounts tragedy in book

 By Bob Barnard, @bobbybbarnard

 

On Thursday, our nation is celebrating Thanksgiving - and marking the 49th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

One man who was there in Dallas has written a book about that dark November day in 1963, and the woman he grew to know and care for in his role as a Secret Service agent.

Clint Hill is the man in the dark suit seen in the historic Zapruder film that captured in the assassination in color. Hill was on the follow-up car behind the presidential limousine in Dealey Plaza when the shots rang out. He raced to the back of the limo where he met a scrambling Jackie Kennedy as she tried to recover portions of the president's brain which had scattered onto the car's trunk.

"I just wish I could have been able to get their a little bit quicker," Hill tells FOX 5 News. "Would have made a difference."

While Hill struggled with deep feeling of guilt, Mrs. Kennedy wanted him there by her side.

"She had asked if I could be assigned to stay with her. And I agreed," Hill says. "I wanted to do that for that first year. I wanted to be with her. Make sure she got adjusted as well as she could, get situated."

Hill's book, "Mrs. Kennedy and Me," details the four years he spent as the special agent in charge of her security.