The New One Is Here!

The first in a new series of crime novels set in America’s most infamous urban disaster has arrived.

The Car Bomb

Publication date: May 9, 2013

Detroit Nielson king Frank DeFauw hunts down the story of a judge who may be corrupt—and is one of his best friends. Booze, drugs, womanizing and a passion for the news are all part of what makes this brilliant, erratic TV anchor a major player in this deeply troubled city. Finally, Frank decides if digging out the truth about his pal the judge is worth risking his own career, family and life.

Early praise for The Car Bomb…

“TV anchor Frank Defauw is a wonderful mixture of cynicism, vanity, self-doubt, weariness and wit. A kind of local princeling, his boozy, womanizing path illuminates everyone he encounters in this tight and vibrant thriller, as well as the dark city in which it is set. With The Car Bomb, a promising trilogy begins.”

“a brilliantly composed and complex thriller… fast moving and gripping”

“A compelling and wonderfully written piece of urban crime fiction, The Car Bomb is a pleasure from start to finish. With its economical and supple prose, brilliant dialogue, sharply-drawn characters and plot that keeps the pages turning, LoCicero has produced a gripping tale of corruption and redemption in Detroit. A classy and fast-paced read.”

 

Coming soon…

Admission of Guilt

Publication date: June 9, 2013

A 12-year-old girl is the desperate focus of three men: John, a dedicated young teacher; Charlie, a small-time private detective; and Steven, a major narcotics importer. Their lives collide when John makes a shocking move to save his students from the city’s drug wars, Steven’s young daughter goes missing, and Charlie—hired to find her—confronts a moral dilemma that will change all their lives.

T.V. LoCicero on The detroit im dyin Trilogy…

“This series is filled with the heartbreaking tales I was steeped in two decades ago when I was making documentaries on crime and dysfunction in the city. They are ripped-from-the-headlines stories from a time when Detroit still had a chance, if only its auto execs had been shrewd and innovative and it’s political leaders competent and honest.”

So yes…

My books are available here, but feel free to tool around and enjoy yourself. If you find some reason to stay for a while, great. If you come back and/or tell others about what you find, even better. So what’s here?

• A true tale of deceit and criminality in the publishing business
• A Blog about things I’m stuck on…books, crime, politics, sports, the arts
• Stories/essays/memoirs/occasional pieces when you click on Shorts
• Galleries of Photos of the actual locations of scenes from my novels
• A sampling of Videos, my profiles of writers, artists, athletes and others
• Some background and Bio details
• And, of course, info on my Books, both fiction and non-fiction

About The Truth Beauty Trilogy…

The Obsession

(The Truth Beauty Trilogy, Book 1)

In this crime thriller a gorgeous Italian professor spends a sabbatical on an American campus and finds her life over turned by a stalker.

The Disappearance

(The Truth Beauty Trilogy, Book 2)

The dark, edgy saga continues in Geneva, as a beautiful Italian scholar is caught up in the shadowy world of Swiss banking and uncovers schemes of betrayal and murder.

These first two entries in the Truth Beauty Trilogy are currently available in both ebook and paperback formats (see Books). The third installment, The Tryst, is now scheduled for publication in 2014. Soon to come are the stand-alone novel Sicilian Quilt, and two more novels in a new crime series, The detroit im dyin Trilogy.

A checkered past…

At one time or another I’ve found work as an industrial spy, a producer of concert videos for Rolling Stone’s greatest singer of all time, a rare male contributor to Gloria Steinem’s Ms. Magazine, a writer of an appellate brief for those convicted in one of Detroit’s most sensational drug trials, the author of a true crime book that garnered a bigger advance than a top ten best-selling American novel…(for more go to Bio)

Here’s that true tale I mentioned…

My career as an author began in 1970 with the publication of Murder in the Synagogue, a true crime account of the assassination of Rabbi Morris Adler in a suburban Detroit temple on Lincoln’s birthday, 1966. The book explored the behavior and psyche of a brilliant graduate student—Phi Beta Kappa at the University of Michigan, a Woodrow Wilson Fellow bound for the Divinity School at the University of Chicago—an idealistic but troubled intellectual seeker who accused his audience of 700 congregants of being hypocrites and materialists, and then turned a gun on the rabbi and himself

Murder was a window on the turbulent 1960s, when one of the hot literary topics was the rise of the “non-fiction novel.” Word was that my publisher, Prentice- Hall, saw my book as a kind of Jewish In Cold Blood, and so in the same year that Mario Puzo got $5000 for what would become The Godfather, I received an advance of $8500.

Upon Publication, Murder drew a number of positive reviews, often in odd, out-of-the-way places, and praise from psychiatric experts, religious figures and academics to whom I sent copies. But the eastern literary establishment seemed to have never heard of it, and sales were slow. Soon I learned that Prentice-Hall had suppressed Murder in the Synagogue, printing 4000 copies from standing type which was then pied or dismantled—the method used for a “limited edition”—and sabotaging its marketing and distribution. It had secretly bowed to pressure from an influential presidential adviser and top Republican fund-raiser named Max Fisher.

When a remarkable young woman from Detroit’s Jewish community told me she had heard this wealthy and powerful man tell a group of friends that he had “squelched” my book, I first verified her story and then did what any foolishly high-minded young writer would do. I went to Prentice-Hall, accused them of destroying my book and demanded and secured its rights. Then I wrote another book about what had happened to Murder. Of course, facing a sure-fire, deep-pockets lawsuit from a guy who hung out with the likes of Henry Ford II and Richard Nixon, not one of the agents and publishers I approached would even look at my new book. My once-budding literary career soon withered.

Eventually, I moved on to a busy life as a TV producer/writer/director. Over the ensuing years, my output included more than 50 long-form documentaries, 75 shorter features, 30 live event programs and (yikes!) 600 editorials. Actually I still do some of that kind of work, but I never stopped writing.

And then the world changed. Digital disruption hit the publishing business, and it may no longer matter what an agent or a publisher will look at. For 30 years I had lost the manuscript of my book about what was done to Murder, but when it came back to me, I brought it up to date and am now offering it as Squelched: The Suppression of Murder in the Synagogue, in both ebook and paper formats, along with the 1200 copies of that original hard-cover edition of Murder that I’ve kept in a basement all these years.

My blog post “We’re Not in Manhattan Any More” recounts this story in fuller measure, questions its relevance today, and offers additional ruminations. You can have a look here.

And for more information on these true crime books, or to sample or buy, just click on Books.

To sample my writing in a shorter form…

You might want to try a story, memoir or essay. You’ll find a number of them available on the Shorts page. Also there, under the heading Time Capsules, you can read gratis several occasional items that reach back to the ‘70s.

For the past three decades…

I’ve been making TV specials, mostly documentaries. On the videos page you’ll find installments from one recent series called “World Class Detroiters.” These are profiles of extraordinary achievers who have chosen, perhaps to the surprise of many, to live in or close to the troubled, oft-maligned city of Detroit. First up, the amazing Elmore Leonard, on just about everyone’s list of the great crime writers of all time.

Thanks for coming by…

Here’s hoping you find something interesting enough to make your stop worth the time. We’re all busy, and if you’re anything like me, you hate wasting time. Now I may look like I’m wasting time in this photo, but actually I’m having breakfast on a patio in Taormina, Sicily, with a stunning view of Mt. Etna, a location featured in the climactic scenes of The Obsession. And if I had sat there all day I would not have been wasting my time.