Search results for ""Author Peter Quinn""

Dry Bones, the third novel of the Fintan Dunne series by Peter Quinn, follows Fintan, who works for the OSS, the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The novel is set during World War II, when Fintan teams up with several of his colleagues working to rescue several intelligence officers who had been fighting the Nazis inside Czechoslovakia. Things go awry and the team soon uncovers a huge conspiracy that may change the course of their careers and their lives. After the end of the war, many of his colleagues have bad things happen to them. The common thing about his friends who either go missing or end up dead is that they were trying to unearth the mystery of an infamous doctor who had gone missing. It seems the CIA is determined to ensure that what happened to the infamous doctor who had made his name experimenting on prisoners of war remained a secret.

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Peter Quinn’s The Man Who Never Returned is a noir-ish, stylized detective narrative set in 1950s New York. It follows Fintan, a retired detective turned private investigator who has been given the job of finding Judge Crater, who just went missing in 1930. Based on a real story, it is quite an intriguing tale that was even more so for people living at the time. The famous missing-person case is comparable to the Amelia Earhart missing-person case, though it could have been an even more interesting one. It was alleged that the missing judge may have had information about underhanded dealings in the New York judiciary. It was believed that if such information came to light, Franklin D. Roosevelt, then governor of New York, would have had a hard time becoming the president of the United States. There were also rumors that the judge, who was a known ladies’ man, had either decided to disappear or had fallen afoul of the mafia. Featuring hardboiled characters and a beautiful re-creation of New York from the ’50s, it is quite a compelling read.

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Named one of the top twenty books every Irish American should read by Irish Central The Civil War has just entered its third bloody year, and the North is about to impose its first military draft, a decision that will spark the most devastating and destructive urban riot in American history. Banished Children of Eve traces that event as its tentacles grip New York City. The cast is drawn from every stratum: a likeable and laconic Irish-American hustler, an ambitious and larcenous Yankee stockbroker, an immigrant serving girl, a beautiful and mysterious mulatto actress and her white minstrel lover as well as a cluster of real-life characters, including scheming, ever-pompous General George McClellan; fiery, fierce Archbishop “Dagger John” Hughes; and fast-declining musical genius Stephen Foster. The fates of these characters coalesce in the cataclysm of the Draft Riots, as a pivotal period in the history of New York and the nation is painfully, vividly, magically bought to life.

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It’s just another murder, one of the hundreds of simple homicides in 1939: A spinster nurse is killed in her apartment; a suspect is caught with the murder weapon and convicted. Fintan Dunne, the P.I. lured onto the case and coerced by conscience into unraveling the complex setup that has put an innocent man on Death Row, will soon find that this is a murder with tentacles which stretch far beyond the crime scene . . . to Nazi Germany, in fact; following it to the end leads him into a murder conspiracy of a scope that defies imagination. The same clouds are rolling over Berlin, where plans for a military coup are forming among a cadre of Wehrmacht officers. Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of the Military Intelligence, is gripped by a deadly paralysis: He is neither with the plotters nor against them. Joining them in treason would violate every value he holds as an officer. Betraying the plotters to the Gestapo Chief, Reinhard Heydrich, might just forsake the country’s last hope to avert utter destruction and centuries of shame. Heydrich is suspicious. With no limits to Hitler’s manic pursuit of territorial expansion, with crimes against the people candy-coated as racial purification, the “hour of the cat” looms when every German conscience must make a choice. When Canaris receives an order to assist in a sinister covert operation on foreign shores, his hour has come. Hour of the Cat is a stunning achievement: tautly suspenseful, hauntingly memorable, and brilliantly authentic.

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Bohernabreena is one of the most fascinating and historic areas in all of Ireland. Including the settlements of the Glenasmole Valley, the legend of Tír na nÓg, and the megalithic burial chamber on Seefin Mountain, this book takes the reader on a journey through the past of Ireland itself. Alongside being a window into our national identity, Bohernabreena is also a beautiful and historic area in its own right, and in this illustrated history Peter Quinn has created a vibrant and valuable record for all those with an interest in its development.

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In this stunning work chronicling the author’s exploration of his own past—and the lives of many hundreds of thousands of nameless immigrants who struggled alongside his own ancestors—Peter Quinn paints a brilliant new portrait of the Irish-American men and women whose evolving culture and values continue to play such a central role in all of our identities as Americans. In Quinn’s hands, the Irish stereotype of “Paddy” gives way to an image of “Jimmy”—an archetypal Irish-American. From Irish immigration to modern politics, Quinn vibrantly weaves together the story of a remarkable people and their immeasurable contribution to American history and culture.

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In his inimitable prose, master storyteller Peter Quinn chronicles his odyssey from the Irish Catholic precincts of the Bronx to the arena of big-league politics and corporate hardball. Cross Bronx is Peter Quinn’s one-of-a-kind account of his adventures as ad man, archivist, teacher, Wall Street messenger, court officer, political speechwriter, corporate scribe, and award-winning novelist. Like Pete Hamill, Quinn is a New Yorker through and through. His evolution from a childhood in a now-vanished Bronx, to his exploits in the halls of Albany and swish corporate offices, to then walking away from it all, is evocative and entertaining and enlightening from first page to last. Cross Bronx is bursting with witty, captivating stories. Quinn is best known for his novels (all recently reissued by Fordham University Press under its New York ReLit imprint), most notably his American Book Award–winning novel Banished Children of Eve. Colum McCann has summed up Quinn’s trilogy of historical detective novels as “generous and agile and profound.” Quinn has now seized the time and inspiration afforded by “the strange interlude of the pandemic” to give his up-close-and-personal accounts of working as a speechwriter in political backrooms and corporate boardrooms: “In a moment of upended expectations and fear-prone uncertainty, the tolling of John Donne’s bells becomes perhaps not as faint as it once seemed. Before judgment is pronounced and sentence carried out, I want my chance to speak from the dock. Let no man write my epitaph. In the end, this is the best I could do.” (from the Prologue) From 1979 to 1985 Quinn worked as chief speechwriter for New York Governors Hugh Carey and Mario Cuomo, helping craft Cuomo’s landmark speech at the 1984 Democratic Convention and his address on religion and politics at Notre Dame University. Quinn then joined Time Inc. as chief speechwriter and retired as corporate editorial director for Time Warner at the end of 2007. As eyewitness and participant, he survived elections, mega-mergers, and urban ruin. In Cross Bronx he provides his insider’s view of high-powered politics and high-stakes corporate intrigue. Incapable of writing a dull sentence, the award-winning author grabs our attention and keeps us enthralled from start to finish. Never have his skills as a storyteller been on better display than in this revealing, gripping memoir.

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