Frequently Asked Questions

Why did you decide to start writing?
I come from a long line of storytellers, so writing has always been in my blood. I grew up watching classic movies on Saturday nights, so I saw the power a well-crafted story could have. My father was always reading a novel on his way to and from work each night, which was a great example for a young kid to have.

I began reading for fun during the Christmas break my junior year in high school. Someone who worked in my neighborhood bookstore suggested I read Cathedral by Nelson DeMille. I was immediately hooked. It had a rich cast of characters and plenty of intrigue and action that caused me to keep turning the pages. I had a ‘book hangover’ for a few days after I finished it and knew I wanted to have that impact on someone someday. I took a creative writing course in college and continued to write after I graduated. It’s been a long journey since then but I have no complaints.

How many series/books do you have?
I currently have six separate series.

New York Crime Novels
These novels feature corrupt NYPD Detective Charlie Doherty during the turbulent 1920s & 1930s. It helps me blend my love of history, politics and crime fiction across a span of six books. The series includes Doherty’s War/Against the Ropes, Prohibition, Slow Burn, The Fairfax Incident and The Wandering Man.

Fun Fact: Each novel is filled with fictional and historical characters such as heavyweight champion Jack Johnson, Mayor Jimmy Walker and Texas Guinan (Mae West’s mentor) to name but a few.

The University Series
My second series is The University Series. It’s a modern-day spy thriller about a semi-official intelligence organization known as The University that seeks to protect the United States from all threats foreign and domestic. It was founded by President Eisenhower to be an organization that was independent of the ‘military industrial complex’. The series includes Sympathy for the Devil, A Murder of Crows, A Conspiracy of Ravens and The Moscow Protocol.

Fun Fact: Although it’s not technically part of The University Series, anyone who reads The Fairfax Incident will get a good idea of how the organization started before World War II.

Westerns – Aaron Mackey/Billy Sunday Series
Aaron Mackey is a former captain of the U.S. Cavalry who, along with his deputy and former Buffalo Soldier Billy Sunday, must protect Dover Station, Montana from a variety of threats. Those novels include Where the Bullets Fly, Dark Territory, Get Out of Town and The Dark Sunrise.

Fun Fact: Yellowstone is one of my favorite television shows, but my novels were written before the Kevin Costner series aired.

Westerns – Jeremiah Halstead Series
These books are a spin-off from the Aaron Mackey/Billy Sunday novels. Jeremiah Halstead, one of Mackey’s deputies, gets his own series starting with Blood on the Trail. Here we see the half-Anglo/half-Mexican Jeremiah Halstead face off against an outlaw greedy for power and fame in the far reaches of the Montana Territory in the late 1880s.

Fun Fact: Each of my Westerns has their own style. The Mackey/Sunday novels are character-driven tales. The Halstead novels are full of action and suspense.

Westerns – The Ralph Compton Series
These books were great fun to write and each of them is a standalone book unrelated to anything else I’ve done. They can be read in any order, but here’s the order in which they were published: The Kelly Trail, Ride The Hammer Down and Stagecoach To Hell.

Is there an order in which your books should be read?
All my books take place in the same universe and are linked to each other in some way. For example, people who read Where the Bullets Fly will meet a young, wealthy railroad investor called Silas Van Dorn. Silas is the old patriarch of the Van Dorn family we first meet in Slow Burn and continue to see throughout the Doherty novels. Those novels set up The University Series of modern-day spy thrillers. One doesn’t have to read all of them, of course, but if they decide to do so, there are nuggets of familiar plot points there to enjoy.

Since I’ve written thrillers, crime novels and Westerns, I always suggest that people start with the first novel in the genre they like. For thrillers, it’s Sympathy For the Devil. For crime novels, you can start your Charlie Doherty journey early by reading the twin novellas Doherty’s War/Against the Ropes. If you like Westerns, give Where the Bullets Fly a shot. 

You claim you’ve written over twenty books, why are there only eighteen listed on your site?

That’s because I’ve been fortunate enough to have ghostwritten several novels for a successful ongoing series that don’t have my name. The real number is closer to twenty-five with many more on the way with my name on the cover. I’ve been very lucky to have so many books in print.

Fun Fact: I also wrote two short science fiction novellas as part of my Gatekeeper Chronicles Series. I had a lot of fun writing them and I hope to have the chance to revive them some day.