The Best is Yet to Come

Friends and relatives are reading my book now. Normally, they are the kindest critics, but my people all know I expect the brutal truth from the them. My son weighed in with the greatest review a father could hope for: “I started reading at 10 in the morning and have read 126 pages and I can’t put it down. The writing is fantastic.” Remind me to raise that kid’s allowance.

The subtext of any excitement I feel now is that I have already written books 2, 3, and 4 in The Frank Boff Mystery Series, so there is so much more good reading to come. And dare I say, books 2-4 are better than the first book, The Hurting Game, which is a terrific book, as noted by a reporter for the New York Times:

"Nathan Gottlieb, who knows the fascinating behind-the-scenes world of professional athletes inside-out, takes us on a compelling and suspenseful trip into the underbelly of the glitzy Las Vegas strip in order to chase down the killer of a world champion boxer. Gottlieb's prose is as fast and firm as the stiffest jab, and his ending is simply lights-out. First-rate, fun and irreverent story telling." (Harvey Araton, New York Times, author of Driving Mr. Yogi)

Each book just  seemed to be better than the predecessor. Call it writer growth, or just getting a stronger handle on my main characters. What really was fun for me in writing the sequels was the way my characters kept evolving, as human beings do. Ditto for relationships between the characters.

Already started book 5, featuring a brand new co-lead whom I’m pumped about getting down on “paper.” She’s my first major woman protagonist, Gena Lynch. Tall lady, ex-Iraq and Afghan vet, recently suspended indefinitely by the NYPD because of a drinking problem. Fate conspires to throw Lynch together with Boff on a case involving a string of  murders in which illegal guns were left at the scene, positioned near the victims head each time. And oh yeah, did I mention that the victims are all cops?

Once again, as in all the books in the series, the surface murders lead to a deeper crime conspiracy that is still going on. That’s echoes Boff’s consistent belief that, “Things in my world are rarely as they seem.”

And from my website, here is a brief description of what you can expect in books 2 and 3:

Boff and Cullen are back in THE PUNISHING
GAME. Cullen is  nearly killed when he, his
trainer Ryan McAlary, and trainer Nino Biaggi get
caught in the crosshairs of a drive-by shootout
between Brooklyn street gangs. A bullet grazes
Cullen’s head, Biaggi is dead, and the cops say
they were just in the wrong place at the wrong
time.

Boff doesn’t think so. He believes the shootout
was staged and Cullen was the real target. So
Boff flies from Las Vegas to Brooklyn to
investigate. Cullen, who is in Brooklyn training for
a major fight at Madison Square Garden, doesn’t
for a moment think he was the target. Once
again he and Boff are at odds.

But when evidence starts to turn up that the
gang shootout indeed had been a charade,
Cullen once again joins forces with Boff. Their
investigation will take them into a dangerous
world where powerful people are playing a game
of high stakes poker in order to pull off a multi-
million dollar scam. Boff himself is nearly killed,
and now he and Cullen are dead set on not only
stopping the scam from coming off, but punishing
the people involved.

In THE KILLER SEX GAME, Boff and Cullen
have moved permanently to the Big Apple, where
they bite into a complex case involving a
murdered Cuban boxing legend, high class call
girls, and a string of related deaths. One of those
killed is Cullen’s girlfriend, who is raped and
murdered in a Brooklyn alley. The killer is caught
in the act and slain by a couple cops who just
happen to be on the scene…or so it seems.

As Boff and Cullen look into both the murder of
his girlfriend and the boxer, some ugly truths
emerge, including the fact that Cullen’s lady
friend lived a dual life as a second-year law
student at Columbia, and also as a hooker for an
elite escort service. When the dead boxer is also
linked to the escort service, Boff and Cullen find
themselves searching in a world where the price
of sex is cheaper than the cost for betrayal:
death.