organized crime with a twist

Adopted as a baby into a New York City crime family, blond, blue-eyed Vinnie Renaldi’s introduction into life is as natural as watching his mother clean his father’s gun while eating his breakfast of Cocoa Puffs. But when a member of the gang is found to have abused his children, a split forms between father and son.

On his own, with his favorite cousin by his side, Vinnie doubles down on intel involving a takedown by NYC Police of the city’s most infamous biker gang’s clubhouse. With opportunity, means, and plenty of motive, the new two-member “gang” infiltrates the bikers’ “house” and awaits the inevitable shootout and a possible huge payday.

But a crooked cop complicates Vinnie’s life as he navigates the intricacies of a new, clueless girlfriend, a new apartment, and the harboring of abused and fearful teens—two of whom, due to karmic craziness, were also adopted as babies.

Higher stakes could not be found as Vinnie bets his life on being smarter than the gang, the cops, and his father, the would-be don. Oh, and, yeah, you’re going to laugh. And tense up. And laugh some more.

M. G. Akins

enjoys freestyle frisbee, the outdoors, creating unique art, and embracing unapologetic humor. He particularly loves to turn his creative imagination into rollicking, off-the-wall fiction.

Writes Anne Brown from NYTrendNYC:

“In most mysteries, the tension revolves around the central question: whodunnit? In H.N. Hirsch’s latest book, Winter, the suspense runs deeper. While a campus murder sets the stage, the true intrigue lies in whether a decades-long relationship can endure grief, professional pressures, and the relentless passage of time.”

When UC San Diego professor Marcus George discovers a colleague’s body in his office, he immediately falls under suspicion. But his partner of nearly twenty years, defense attorney Bob Abramson, faces his own personal grief, leading the couple to navigate love, loyalty, and resilience under pressure.

Purchase your copy of Winter today!

In Winter, Hirsch continues to blend rich character development with the thrills of a whodunnit, offering a story that is as emotionally compelling as it is intellectually engaging. Readers encounter not just a murder mystery, but a vivid portrayal of partnership tested by time, loss, and moral complexity.

Elizabeth Ireland of The Times of San Diego writes, “Beyond mystery elements, the novel explores both the positive and problematic aspects of university life, drawing from Hirsch’s exposure to different academic environments throughout his career. The series also serves as a cultural time capsule, tracing the evolving experience of gay men in America.”

From Susan E. Nash of dLearningCorgi educational blog:

The novel’s strength lies in its authentic portrayal of academic culture, drawing on Hirsch’s extensive experience in higher education to expose the toxic intersection of intellectual ambition, institutional politics, and personal vendettas.

The murder investigation serves as a catalyst for exploring deeper themes of truth, loyalty, and moral compromise… Parallel to the mystery, an infidelity subplot provides the novel’s emotional core. Hirsch handles this marital crisis with remarkable sensitivity … creating a rich family tapestry that grounds the more sensational murder plot.

N.N. Light gave the book five stars and wrote: “Winter is a gripping murder mystery I thoroughly enjoyed. As the mystery unfolds, H N Hirsch’s writing skills are unmatched. The investigation is realistic and intricate with a fairly large list of suspects.”

And Molly Toolan of the London, UK, Daily Express had this to say:

“A new crime novel has hit our shelves this week and fans are describing it as “gripping”… In the chilling new murder mystery Winter, Marcus becomes entangled in a murder investigation and reluctantly finds himself playing amateur sleuth. Meanwhile, Bob is coping with a family tragedy and, as his 40th birthday approaches, faces personal demons as well.

Through the evolving lives of Bob and Marcus, the novels trace not only a personal love story but also the broader cultural and political shifts shaping the lives of gay men in America. Hirsch’s Bob and Marcus mystery series is filled with complex characters, colorful locations and plenty of thrills for anyone who loves a good whodunnit.”

Don’t wait—order your copy today!

Jerome Light is a middle-class, upstanding, married, family man—who happens to be an atheist. 

One evening when no one else is home one evening, Jerome steps outside to see the sunset—and then watches as his house is swallowed up by a sinkhole. His insurance company says he is not covered for this “Act of God.” Unable to sue the insurance company or God, Jerome decides to sue a television evangelist named Gideon Calhoun, who regularly says he is “God’s agent here on Earth.” A dashing, mysterious attorney named Thaddeus MacConnell takes the case.

Jerome and Gideon are given surprising mandates from their attorneys. Jerome, the atheist, must prove in court that God exists, and that Gideon is God’s agent. Gideon, the evangelist, must argue that he is not God’s agent, and that God may not even exist!

The families of both men are pulled, sometimes against their will, into this epic battle that changes everyone’s life forever.

Author Jeffrey Melvin Hutchins is one of the pioneers of the closed-captioning service that makes television accessible to people who are deaf or hard of hearing. Born in New York City, Jeff grew up in Saudi Arabia and attended high school in Beirut, Lebanon, before earning a degree in broadcasting & film from Boston University. He became a TV producer at WGBH in Boston, and later was a founder of VITAC, the captioning company.

His dystopian novel Perpetuonics was published by Pisgah Press in 2024. Since retiring, he has been the creator of a collection of children’s stories, songs, and videos about Denton the Dragon. In 2022, Denton the Dragon the Musical!, a stage show he wrote with Matthew Gould, debuted.

Jerome v. God is available now through online booksellers.

ISBN: 978-1-942016-98-4

When UC-San Diego Professor Marcus George discovers the body of an outspoken, overbearing colleague in a faculty office, he becomes entangled in a murder investigation and reluctantly finds himself playing amateur sleuth.

His partner, attorney Bob Abramson, is coping with a family tragedy—and, as his 40th birthday approaches, facing personal demons as well. Winter combines the suspense of a murder with a profound observation of character, as Bob and Marcus face their most difficult time as a couple.

The fourth in H.N. Hirsch’s Bob & Marcus Mystery series, Winter brings readers ever more intimately into the lives of the long-time crime-solving duo. Emotional stress over the death of a parent plunges them into sorrow, while their daughter Lily brings only joy as she begins to grow up. And their investigator colleague, Jason, surprises them by finding, at last, what may turn into a meaningful relationship.

As always, however, the quest to find the murderer is the central element of this engrossing story, and Bob and Marcus’s determination to do so brings them up against power, influence, and money in the world of academe. Winter is a hot summer read you won’t want to miss!

Available June 8 online and through retailers everywhere.

Port City, Eliot Sefrin’s blockbuster historical novel, will be released May 6, 2025. Set in New York City in the heady days after the Allies’ victory in World War II, the novel follows the groundbreaking strike of the Tugboat Workers Union against the cartel of owners of the essential fleets.

Based on real-life events, Port City unfolds in 1946, as New York becomes the latest city to feel the impact of mass strikes sweeping across America in the face of defense factory closures, job shortages, worker frustration, and rampant postwar inflation. Worker unrest was already sweeping across post-war America, and this unprecedented strike crippled the nation’s preeminent city, pitting an upstart labor union against powerful corporate interests arrayed against him. The strike also tests the bond between two brothers—one a rebellious, visionary union leader, the other a war-weary ex-G.I. struggling to reboot his life.

Feisty, streetwise Benny Logan has risen in the union ranks in a break from the corrupt, old-guard leaders who have victimized the city’s tugboat workers for decades. Seeking allies in his crusade to reform the labor union, Benny recruits his younger brother Jack, newly returned from the war, as a deckhand on the flagship of tugboat magnate Henry McFarland, the unscrupulous leader of a tugboat owners’ coalition working in concert with city officials, mob associates, and others to preserve a moneymaking status quo. McFarland will stop at nothing to crush the union and protect the interests of the city’s corporate elite, while Benny, equally stubborn and determined.

As powerful forces collide, Benny’s beloved kid brother Jack plays an unexpected role in finding a new way forward for labor-management relations, even as he and his wife, a pregnant British war bride, attempt to recover from the emotional trauma of the war.

What Reviewers Say . . .

From Diane Donovan (Donovan’s Boookshelf) Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review:

Vivid descriptions explore what goes on beneath the surface of many local issues and events, bringing New York City and its interests to life in a way that will prove absolutely compelling, even to readers with little prior familiarity with New York’s history. . . It’s a supercharged saga of transformation that will entertain while immersing readers in situations that reflect how people grow—sometimes, against all odds.

From Sarah Harkness for The Book Commentary online

FIVE STARS

Port City by Eliot Sefrin plunges readers into post-World War II New York, where a ferocious tugboat workers’ strike becomes a battleground of labor versus corporate interests. The backdrop of a jubilant yet tumultuous America teeters between promise and upheaval as workers, long subjugated to wage freezes and corruption, rise against their beleaguered leadership. Key characters, including ambitious tugboat owner Henry McFarland, fiery union leader Benny Logan, and conflicted ex-GI Jack Logan, intertwine their fates in a gripping tale highlighting the struggle for justice, dignity, and economic survival.

. . .  The setting of New York Harbor, a hub of economic activity and immigration, is a mesmerizing backdrop and character in the story. The tugboats, lifelines of the bustling city, mirror the workers’ struggles, a brilliant portrait of a fragile balance between progress and the brink of chaos. The author skillfully employs vivid imagery to evoke the harsh winter landscape against the social fractures that become apparent under the strike.

. . . Sefrin crafts a narrative that is both a historical recounting and a captivating commentary on the complex nature of labor relations, making Port City a must-read for anyone interested in the struggle for social justice.

Purchase Perpetuonics today!

Jeffrey Melvin Hutchins has been honored as one of the pioneers of the closed-captioning service that makes television accessible to people who are deaf or hard of hearing. He was responsible for the development of the technology to caption live programs. Born in New York City, Jeff grew up in Saudi Arabia and attended high school in Beirut, Lebanon, before earning a degree in broadcasting & film from Boston University, where he met his wife, Diane. In the 1970s, Jeff was a TV producer at WGBH in Boston, and later was a founder of VITAC, the captioning company.

Since retiring, he has been the creator of a collection of children’s stories, songs, and videos about Denton the Dragon. In 2022, Denton the Dragon the Musical!, a stage show he wrote with Matthew Gould, debuted.

Rain, a Bob & Marcus murder mystery by H. N. Hirsch, and Murder on the Rocks, the latest in R F Wilson’s Rick Ryder mystery series

H. N. Hirsch’s Rain brings back Professor Marcus George, now at the University of California San Diego, and his partner Bob Abramson, a lawyer in private practice in the city. When student Kenny Glick asks them to defend him from a likely murder charge, the gay detectives go all in, learning more than they wanted to know about the seamy underside of student life.

In the words of RF Wilson, creator of the Rick Ryder series, “H.N. Hirsch seamlessly weaves a classic who-done-it with a moving family drama and a startling climax. At once suspenseful and tender, this is a welcome addition to Hirsch’s Bob & Marcus series.”

RF Wilson’s fourth Rick Ryder mystery is available now from Pisgah Press and on Amazon and other online stores. Murder on the Rocks is set in the fictional Bay County along the NC-SC seacoast, where local political corruption, cover-ups, and a history of racial strife rear their ugly heads.

Murder on the Rocks introduces Detective Rebecca Hammond of the Atlanta Police Department, who joins Ryder in investigating the apparent murder of her brother, a member of the local sheriff’s department. The twists and turns that arise as the two detectives seek answers will leave reders confounded until the very end.

Reed’s Homophones Fourth Edition with expanded listings is available now at Amazon

Editor-in-chief A.D. Reed has updated and expanded the fourth edition of Reed’s Homophones: A Comprehensive Book of Sound-alike Words. It’s available here or through Amazon.com for just $17.95.

H. N. Hirsch’s Rain brings back Professor Marcus George, now at the University of California San Diego, and his partner Bob Abramson, a lawyer in private practice in the city. When student Kenny Glick asks them to defend him from a likely murder charge, the gay detectives go all in, learning more than they wanted to know about the seamy underside of student life.

In the words of RF Wilson, creator of the Rick Ryder series, “H.N. Hirsch seamlessly weaves a classic who-done-it with a moving family drama and a startling climax. At once suspenseful and tender, this is a welcome addition to Hirsch’s Bob & Marcus series.”

RF Wilson’s fourth Rick Ryder mystery will be released in August 2024

Murder on the Rocks is set in the fictional Bay County along the NC-SC seacoast, where local political corruption, cover-ups, and a history of racial strife rear their ugly heads.

Murder on the Rocks introduces Detective Rebecca Hammond of the Atlanta Police Department, who joins Ryder in investigating the apparent murder of her brother, a member of the local sheriff’s department. The twists and turns that arise as the two detectives seek answers will leave reders confounded until the very end.

Reed’s Homophones Fourth Edition with expanded listings is available now at Amazon

Editor-in-chief A.D. Reed has updated and expanded the fourth edition of Reed’s Homophones: A Comprehensive Book of Sound-alike Words. It’s available here or through Amazon.com for just $17.95.

Books by Peter Loewer, Ferster & Bevan, and Al & Sunny Lockwood

Letters of the Lost Children: Japan — WWII, by Reinhold C. Ferster and Jan Atchley Bevan is now available through local bookstores and online booksellers. The coffee table-sized volume ($34.95, 35 illustrations) is built around original pictures of Japan’s student-soldiers (some as young as 13) sacrificed as military fodder in the final years of the Second World War. The cache of photographs, apparently collected by an unidentified American soldier, forms the background for an in-depth, dramatic recreation of the lost lives of these unknown boys through a series of well researched, re-imagined letters to family and loved ones. The book includes historical research into the culture of Imperial Japan and its approach to war.

In May 2021 Pisgah Press will release Peter Loewer’s mystery novel, The Last of the Swindlers, set in the mythical (but based-on-reality) town of Fernglade in Madison County, NC during the long-ago 1970s. A despicable religious cult, smugglers, and corruption plague the town in this delightful cozy mystery. Peter Loewer is best known as “The Wild Gardener,” author (and illustrator) of more than two dozen books on gardening, horticulture, and living with the natural environment. This wonderful murder mystery brings his familiar in-depth knowledge of his subject matter and his well-known dry wit to the fore.

In a first collaboration with Sunny and Al Lockwood’s Front Porch Publishing, Pisgah Press will release the print version of one of the couple’s delightful travel books: Cruising Eastern Canada, about their voyage from Boston to Montreal—via Bar Harbor, Maine; Halifax, Nova Scotia; Prince Edward Island; Quebec City, and other 0aritime stops and the St. Lawrence River.

The Lockwood’s have written numerous best-selling travel memoirs, in both eBook and print formats, including: Cruising Panama’s Canal: Savoring 5,000 Nautical Miles and 500,000 Decadent Calories; Cruising the Mediterranean; Finding Ourselves in Venice, Florence, Rome & Barcelona; Cruising the Atlantic: Our Epic Journey from Miami to Barcelona; and Cruising the Mississippi: From New Orleans to Memphis on a Genuine Paddlewheeler.

Reed’s Homophones Fourth Edition with expanded listings is available now at Amazon

Editor-in-chief A.D. Reed has updated and expanded the fourth edition of Reed’s Homophones: A Comprehensive Book of Sound-alike Words. It’s available here or through Amazon.com for just $14.95.