September 11th, Charlie Kirk, and Exposed King

I am sitting here this morning feeling a sense of numbness as I deal with the normal emotions of September 11th coupled with the assassination of Charlie Kirk. I say ‘normal’ because as an NYPD first responder on that day I have grudgingly accepted that the emotions are part of who I am now. I stopped trying to make sense of it long ago, and now I just accept that there is an ebb and flow that I must ride out annually. I don’t fight it; I just let the memories come in and go out, because you cannot make ‘sense’ of what happened twenty-four years ago.

On September 11th, 2001, we came together as a country. At first we felt rage and anger about the terrorist attack. Then we felt the collective pain as we came to terms with the fact that we’d lost thousands of our fellow citizens; men, women and children who would never see another sunrise; people who woke up and died because of someone else’s hatred. Then there was a brief moment of solidarity: United We Stand, Never Forget, Remember the Heroes… but like most altruistic slogans, it had no depth.

Yesterday, September 10th, 2025, a 31-year-old husband and father of two small children was assassinated in Utah. His crime? Having a dissenting opinion.

Charlie Kirk was on a university campus, a world where dissenting opinions have traditionally been fostered and embraced, but yesterday we were told, in no uncertain terms, that this world no longer exists.

A man was murdered in cold-blood and many cheered at his demise.

A bullet became the ultimate form of censorship.

It reminded me of the line spoken by Tyrion Lannister in George R.R. Martin’s book: Clash of Kings – “When you tear out a man's tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you're only telling the world that you fear what he might say.”

This is America now. This is who we have become. Not United, but divided to the point that murder has become an acceptable course of action against those whom we disagree with.

I released my last James Maguire book, Glass Castle, in 2019. As most good authors, I had the working plot for the next book, Exposed King, in my head. I remember that I struggled a bit with it, because it had what I felt was a radical leap, or, to use the old Happy Days trope, I felt like I was ‘jumping the shark’ with this story-line, but I told myself that I could polish it and make it plausible. I’d moved on to the next Alex Taylor book, The Killing Game, as I compiled notes and ideas and fleshed-out the outline.

Then Covid-19 happened.

I thought it was my time to shine, to get the downtime I needed to write my little heart out.

I finished The Killing Game, I wrote Awakening, a genre bending police procedural meets vampires, got in another Cold Case novella, and even managed to write: Shadow Strike, a Maguire origin story, but Exposed King languished in a file on my computer.

I wrote some chapters, which were more like snippets or frustrated paragraphs, in fits and starts, struggling as I went, as if some unseen force was trying to block me. As a writer, I knew I had to walk away. Forcing it would never work. I kept asking myself why I was having so much of a problem.

It’s fiction. I’m a writer. This is what I do.

The truth is I fear that Exposed King won’t be fiction. The premise is less of a ‘who done it’ and more of a ‘what if.’

As I said earlier, the plot came to me during Glass Castle, pre-dating Covid, but also George Floyd and before the Defund the Police movement and all the other radical events since. With each passing day, I saw my fictional plot growing potentially more real, and it scared me.

America is changing, and not for the better.

For nearly a hundred years, Superman’s iconic motto was: “Truth, Justice, and the American Way,” and yet today we find ourselves facing an America where truth is subjective, justice is no longer impartial, and the American way is abhorrent to a large swath of society.

I know I have to finish Exposed King; I just hope it remains within the realm of fictional work and does not become a prescient warning.

A part of me wonders if George Orwell felt the same way when he published 1984.

May God have mercy on us.

9/11 World Trade Center Cross taken by anne bybee

Interview with Sgt. Betsy Brantner Smith (National Police Association)

I had the absolute pleasure of being interviewed by retired sergeant, Betsy Brantner Smith, for the podcast she does for the National Police Association.

Some of you might be familiar with Betsy, as she has appeared on a number of news shows, including Newsmax, and Fox.

Despite some minor technical glitches (rural internet being what it is), we managed to have a great time. Betsy is an awesome interviewer and we touched on a number of topics, including my career with the NYPD, my transition to author, and the state of policing.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Click on the photo below or the link provided at the botom.

or CLICK HERE: https://www.thefirsttv.com/watch/npa-report-andrew-g-nelson

NYPD Cold Case Anthology (Print) - Update

It’s been a while since I posted and I apologize for that. I was in the middle of a house remodel and have been working on the next installment in the Alex Taylor series. It is my hope that I will be able to release this new book before the end of the year.

It took some time, but it appears that the pricing issue surrounding the print version of the NYPD Cold Case Anthology has been resolved. The correct price of $10.99 now appears on the amazon website. If you would like to order this, you can click: ORDER HERE

This book features all three books in the Detective Angelo Antonucci series:

The Katherine White Murder - Case #13-098

The Rosary Bead Murders - Case #14-102

The Crazy 8 Cowboys - Case #15-003

Thank you for your patience while this matter was addressed.

GLASS CASTLE - Cover Reveal

GLASS CASTLE

When a young woman is found dead in her Midtown Manhattan apartment, all signs point to a tragic suicide, but the detectives of the NYPD have grown accustomed to the fact that things are rarely what they appear to be. The trail of clues leads them into a world of sex, lies and politics.

James Maguire has grudgingly accepted his new role as NYPD Police Commissioner, but soon finds himself questioning his decision when he is thrust into the middle of an investigation that threatens the very underpinnings of the city. While Maguire treads carefully through the political minefield, his fiancée, Melody Anderson, is facing her own dilemma; a job offer from Eliza Cook, the woman that many believe will be the next President of the United States.

As the investigation heats up, Maguire soon finds himself wondering who he can trust and reaching out to his past for help, but will that help come at too high of a personal price?

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Stop Blaming the Cops !

As a writer, I spend a lot of time on social media, engaging with my fans, a number of whom are in law enforcement. Over the past week or so I have seen several videos, involving police officers, which have sent a cold chill through me.

For those of you who don’t know me, I spent over two decades in law enforcement; including twenty years with the NYPD. While I have a deep appreciation for the often thankless work that our law enforcement officers perform on a daily basis, that does not mean I am a biased cheerleader. I believe that we should always examine every issue through a clear lens.

Are there bad cops? Absolutely.

Should law enforcement be held to a higher standard? Absolutely.

But make no mistake about it, we don’t recruit officers from some mythical alien planet, where everyone is virtuous and never makes a mistake. We recruit from local communities, from among us, and if we are flawed as human beings this means those who we ask to protect and defend us are equally flawed. Theoretically, the background check is designed to weed out any problems, but too often we see that these checks become lax when politics enters the mix.

The authority entrusted to officers is immense. They have the power to take away your freedom and that is something that should not be treated lightly, but I’m often dismayed at how this is treated as a one-way street. Often the biggest critics of police officers are the ones who aggressively abuse their freedoms and push for confrontations.

Case in point: Charlottesville.

Regardless of what side of the fence you are on this issue, we have to agree that American’s have a First Amendment right to free speech. You may not agree with it, but you have to respect it. The reason is pretty clear: today you might not agree with their speech, but tomorrow they might not agree with yours. But disagreement was not on the hearts and minds of some in Charlottesville. By all accounts the ‘white supremacist’ contingent failed to materialize, but that wasn’t a problem for the Antifa folks. No they showed up ready for a fight and when they couldn’t find any ‘fascists’ to bash, they turned their anger toward the cops and journalists.  They were a riot looking for a reason.

This is part of a growing trend in America where people are being emboldened to act in any way they want without fear of any consequences.

Recently in New York City, the police were called to a location in the Bronx. As the officers were leaving the location, several males confronted them, cell phone cameras in hand, and began a profanity laced tirade against them. Even though they were committing a clear case of disorderly conduct, no action was taken by the officers.

Why?

Because police officers now work in an exaggerated environment of: damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Frankly, I have never seen it this bad before.

Politicians and pundits are actively supporting groups who call for the death of police officers. They even make excuses, citing the current president as being the source of all these issues. Apparently, for as enlightened as these folks claim to be, they are unaware that these groups and events predate the last election.

The reality is that they have been running roughshod over facts for a very long time.  Why you ask? Ratings and votes. I wish I could say it was something more profound, more enlightening, but it’s not. If you are interested, I wrote about this previously (Violence Based on a Lie) and I am sad to say nothing has changed.

The fact is that law enforcement in America is an illusion. The population of America is 320 million and there are less than a million law enforcement officers. You do the math.

The origins of policing in America are founded on the British model which contends that the powers to police are with the implicit consent of the public. That means we want to be safe and we want the police to perform this job. It’s the principal of community policing, but what happens when it is undermined?

That is what is happening today in America when politicians and journalists spread misinformation or just outright lies. Sadly, this mindset is also taking hold among police administrators, who fear a career ending political backlash if they don’t toe-the-line.

Imagine the message that is sent to the front-line officers when they perform their job exactly as they were trained, in accordance with the manual they were given, and yet when the public protests, they are made a scapegoat. Is it any wonder why more and more officers are taking a hands-off approach?  It’s a tough enough job to do when you know the agency has your back, but entirely different when you know that your bosses will sacrifice you to protect their careers. 

When we demonize and dehumanize law enforcement, we make it acceptable to do anything we want to them. They become the nameless, faceless representatives of evil repression. We don’t have to look any further than the assassination of NYPD police officers Ramos and Liu in 2014 to see what that looks like.

But when the cops are gone, who will protect us? And that question should send a cold chill through YOU.

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