For Hire

About the Book

The body of a homosexual is killed along a jogging trail in  the Brooklyn Heights Park. A place well known for homosexual activity. First Grade Detective Nick Maloni is in the Brooklyn South Homicide Task Force and  assigned to the homicide investigation. His fifth  homsexual killing. All of the victims where killed by an ice pick like object stuck into their brain through the ear canal.  The killings are made to look like a serial killer is on the loose. Maloni is sure the killings were done by Vito Gentile, a contract killer known for this unusual method of murder. The motive is the mystery. Nick is joined by his old partner Jimmy Trask from the Robbery Squad in the investigation.

A few days later a woman is brutally killed in an apartment house basement, her infant is with her, asleep in its carriage.  She was killed when she resisted being raped. She has puncture wounds around her face, head and neck. Is it the same  ice pick killer in a murderous rage? The detectives are assigned this case also. Soon the killer strikes again, raping and killing  a young woman. The brutal killings continue while Maloni and Trask frantically try to find the serial killer. A break comes and he is identified. The rapist turned killer is tracked down and found in Prospect Park.

Maloni is told the motives behind the homosexual killings, his informant is the next victim. The investigation leads them to a Brooklyn law firm, one of the lawyers is the brother of the Mayor of New York City. Arrests are made that shake up City Hall. Maloni confirms the killer is Vito Gentile, a contract killer who learned his trade as an assassin in Vietnam under the direction of the CIA.

The government agency is asked to cooperate and release information on Gentile to the detectives. They deny knowledge of the killer and start their own manhunt to find him.

Gentile is found by the Agency in Manhattan and marked for death. They soon find out the Agency is no match for the trained killer. The CIA next puts out a contract on the killer through a mobster in Las Vegas. Soon the CIA is placed on the offensive when a reporter meets with a deputy director of the CIA to  go over  their control of an assassination unit in Vietnam that killed woman and children. They plot to kill the story and the reporter.

The only way Nick Maloni  hopes to capture Gentile is to set a trap for the elusive hit-man, by arranging  a contract for Gentile to kill his rich uncle.

About the Author

The author retired as a detective from the New York City Police Department. He presently resides in Florida with his wife, near his daughter and grandchildren.