About Tony Spinosa

Tony's Bio

Tony Spinosa was raised by nuns in a Brooklyn orphanage. It is widely rumored that he was the product of an affair between the blind daughter of a neighborhood rabbi and a local wiseguy.

The Real Story

Tony is my open pen name. I have published a short story, "Killing O'Malley" and one novel, Hose Monkey, under Tony's name. I am currently working on a second Tony Spinosa novel that, like Hose Monkey, features disgraced NYPD detective turned truck driver Joe "the Snake" Serpe. That book is entitled The Fourth Victim.

I created Tony at a time when I had completed the last book of a contract. My future with that publisher was unclear and I was unwilling to sit on my hands until a determination was made. At the same time, I didn't want to write a book with my real name that might compete head to head with my other works. So Tony Spinosa was born.

Hose Monkey
October 2006
ISBN-10: 1932557180
ISBN-13: 978-1932557183

Joe Serpe, a legendary NYPD Narcotics detective, is forced to leave his job in disgrace. In order to stay out of prison and in a futile attempt to save his family, Serpe testifies against his best friend and partner, Ralph Abruzzi. Abruzzi commits suicide, Serpe's marriage blows up, and his fireman brother is killed on 9/11. Serpe now lives in a basement apartment in central Long Island and delivers home heating oil for cash. But his world is turned upside down yet again when a young retarded man who worked with Serpe is brutally murdered. Serpe teams up with his old NYPD nemesis, Bob Healy, to solve the murder.

The Fourth Victim
Fall 2008

Several home heating oil delivery drivers have been robbed and murdered. Joe Serpe and Bob Healy, now partners in an oil company of their own, make sure their drivers are safe. But when Rusty Monaco, another ex-NYPD detective, becomes the killer's fourth victim, Serpe and Healy take matters into their own hands. In the course of their unofficial investigation they stumble upon a completely different set of crimes that lead both Serpe and Healy back onto the streets they protected as cops.