CONTINUED: Don Lewis' "Rizzo"

 Book Description

Nathan Rizzo, a retired Pittsburgh Homicide Detective, recently widowed, needs something to get his life started again. He finds it in an offer to become the chief of police in a small town in North Central Pennsylvania.

Expecting the job to be essentially stress-free, Rizzo and the small town of Braden are suddenly confronted with a number of brutal murders, all seemingly committed by the same person, yet without clues to connect the victims, and no evidence pointing to a suspect.

The investigation leads Rizzo to the ten year old unsolved murder of a police officer in Twin Falls, Idaho. The key to solving the murders in Braden may have to be found in Idaho.

A number of suspects begin to surface, none but one of whom would seem to have a sufficient motive for the extreme barbarism exercised in the Braden murders, and that person died in an auto accident years earlier.

As Rizzo winds his way through the maze that blocks the identity of the killer, outside entities, including organized crime figures, influence and hinder the investigation.

Working his way through a trail of blood, brutality, and old buried psychological scars, Rizzo’s experience and focus are severely tested, and leave him wondering if he should return to the calmer, less taxing job of a Pittsburgh Homicide Detective.

 Insight from Don Lewis

Detective Nathan Rizzo, retired homicide detective and recently widowed, finds himself and his life, lacking a purpose. Seeing this happening, his old friends and fellow detectives at the Pittsburgh Police Homicide Squad, set him up with a job as the chief of police in a small town in North Central Pennsylvania. Hoping and expecting that the slow pace and lack of serious crime would allow him to keep busy in a stress-free environment, he accepts the job.

As it turns out, the most stressful case he had ever handled, a series of brutal killings, lands in his lap in small town America. How he deals with this situation and brings his experience to bear in a situation where he is basically lacking the support network he had been used to, provides an insight into the life of Chief Rizzo.

As a career prosecutor and criminal trial attorney, I have known many police detectives and have seen them work. I also know several big city cops who took their act to the country and have watched them deal with this strange and totally different environment. Thinking it would make for an interesting story, I have followed the fictional Nathan Rizzo to such a town and have tried to see into how such a man would react in the story line I have created in Rizzo.

About Author Don Lewis

As a trial lawyer in hundreds of criminal jury trials, including more than 60 murder cases, Mr. Lewis is uniquely qualified to author crime novels like Rizzo. During those years he has had exposure to all types of witnesses and evidence.

Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Mr. Lewis, a former paratrooper and Vietnam Veteran, completed his undergraduate work at Waynesburg College in Pennsylvania, and in 1970 received his law degree from Duquesne University Law School in Pittsburgh.

In 2002 Mr. Lewis retired from the practice of law to devote more time to his writing. In addition to Rizzo, he has authored three other crime novels: Satan’s Boots Don’t Creak, Dark Covenant, and Kalup’s Crossroads.

You may learn more about the author and his books and read sample chapters of each at Mr. Lewis’ website: www.mysterywriterdonlewis.com.