Robert Briganti is the Assassin. Ruthless, indifferent to his own survival, he lives only to destroy the Mafia. This time, armed with his hand-picked arsenal of superweapons, he moves south for his most savage hit: a Mafia summit conference in a New Orleans motel where no one outside the syndicate can get in, or out, alive. Peter J. McCurtin was born in Ireland on 15 October 1929, and immigrated to America when he was in his early twenties. Records also confirm that, in 1958, McCurtin co-edited the short-lived (one issue) New York Review with William Atkins. By the early 1960s, he was co-owner of a bookstore in Ogunquit, Maine, and often spent his summers there.McCurtin's first book, Mafioso (1970) was nominated for the prestigious Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award, and filmed in 1973 as The Boss, with Henry Silva. More books in the same vein quickly followed, including Cosa Nostra (1971), Omerta (1972), The Syndicate (1972) and Escape From Devil's Island (1972). 1970 also saw the publication of his first "Carmody" western, Hangtown.Peter McCurtin died in New York on 27 January 1997. His westerns in particular are distinguished by unusual plots with neatly resolved conclusions, well-drawn secondary characters, regular bursts of action and tight, smooth writing. If you haven't already checked him out, you have quite a treat in store.McCurtin also wrote under the name of Jack Slade and Gene Curry. Robert Briganti is the focus of this series; born in 1935, growing up in New Orleans, Briganti became a master sharpshooter in the Wild Bill Brady carnival, going on to become a salesman of military surplus, particularly in South America. In this capacity he did odd jobs for the CIA. Then ten years ago Briganti quit this life, moved to Connecticut, and opened a sporting goods store there. Then one night Crazy Joe Coraldi, a good-looking and well-known Mafioso (who was jailed as a teen on "two convictions of sodomy," by the way), showed up in Briganti's store and demanded that Briganti get him some heavy-duty weaponry. Briganti told him to go to hell. Then when Briganti's wife of ten years, Nancy, picked him up after work, their 9 year-old son Michael along for the ride, a car with New York tags sped by and opened fire on them. Nancy and Michael died on the scene. Briganti recuperated in the hospital and slipped out from under his police guard. Then he declared war on Coraldi.
