Biography

    Ed was born in Yonkers, N.Y. Feb. 3, 1940. He graduated from Sacred Heart High School, then served two years in the U.S. Army. In 1962 he joined the NYPD and spent nine years in uniform in South Bronx precincts; the last eleven years of his career he supervised detectives in the Organized Crime Control Bureau. While working the streets he earned a BA from Fordham University.
     Ed retired from the NYPD as a lieutenant. Then, answering a life-long desire to write, he left Fordham School of Law and earned a MFA in Creative Writing from Arizona State University.
     His first novel, 14 Peck Slip, which was also his master's thesis, was named a Notable Book of The Year in 1994 by the New York Times. Bronx Angel ('95) and Little Boy Blue ('97) followed. In October '99 his fourth novel, Nightbird, will be released.
     Ed has two daughters and four grandchildren. He lives in Delaware with his wife, Nancy.

From Booklist , July 19, 1995
This excellent procedural covers several days in the lives of New York City detectives Anthony Ryan and Joe Gregory, who were introduced in 14 Peck Slip. Ryan is a family man and a recovering alcoholic, and he's even computer literate; he uses his home PC to track the notes of his open cases. He's not nostalgic about the old days, and he accepts the diversity of the modern NYPD. Gregory, divorced and edgy, is more old-fashioned. He's not adverse to using a little muscle to get information, and he's enthusiastically campaigning to be elected president of the Emerald Society, a vestigial fraternal club from the days when the NYPD was composed almost entirely of Irish men. The partners are investigating the murder of a cop in the Bronx, apparently by a hooker. Dee, a retired New York detective, has created an eclectic mix of characters. His cops are tired and wary but not burned out. They still care about nailing the bad guys; they've just surrendered some of their quixotic notions to the realities of the street. Highly recommended. George Needham

From Booklist , December 1, 1996
The perpetrators of a multimillion-dollar heist at New York's JFK Airport leave behind a dead baggage handler: Johnny Boy Counihan. The heat on the bad guys is intense, but Detectives Joe Gregory and Anthony Ryan add a few hundred degrees because the victim is the son of Gregory's long-retired, long-ago partner. The heist appears to be the handiwork of the Lutz family, who hate to pay their tithe on jobs to the local Mob families. The detectives are also troubled by the prospect that Johnny Boy may have been one of the robbers himself and the victim of a double-cross. In order to ascertain the real reason Johnny Boy was present, they try to interview various Lutzes, but the Mob is killing them faster than Gregory and Ryan can interview them. Adding spice to the plot is Johnny Boy's Ould Sod fiancée, Fiona, and tough-guy grandfather, Vito Martucci. Woven throughout this outstanding crime novel is an intelligent examination of modern families as illustrated by Ryan's wife and grown-up kids; the extended family of cops; the loyalties exhibited by the Mafia; and the many unrelated groups who band together for companionship and support in an increasingly hostile, indifferent world. An unromanticized, realistic crime drama. Wes Lukowsky
 

A young actress plummets through the sky, slamming down onto the roof of a parked car. Detectives Anthony Ryan and Joe Gregory believe the Broadway star's "suicide" may actually be something more sinister. The main suspect is a big-time Broadway producer with a shady past. But who is the mysterious figure known only as the "Juggler" -- and what connections does he have to the dead girl?
     From the back alleys of Broadway to vanishing Irish communities of Yonkers, Ryan and Gregory work through family secrets and tarnished reputations to find out what really happened on that balcony. As they discover the truth, the case becomes personal for Ryan, bringing him dangerously close to losing everything, in the suspenseful new novel Nightbird.