Title: Even a Pandemic Can’t Stop Love and Murder Vol. 1 Break the Bank
Author: A.E.S. O’Neill
Publisher: AESON Publications
ISBN: 979-8-9851224-0-4
Pages: 343
Genre: Crime / Political / Psychological Thriller
Synopsis
“…an intriguing crime story packed with shady characters, double-dealing and violence…Alby and Ginger are the novel’s driving force, and thankfully for thriller fans, they are well worth spending time with.” —BlueInk
What does a romance-thriller look like in the Pandemic era? Welcome to a very possible near future where crime, murder and love seem familiar but are reshaped by the dark presence of the ongoing Pandemic.
It is the mid-2020s. Alby O’Brien is hiding in southern New Jersey to avoid the wrath of terrorists who are after him. Believing he is safely hidden in his cave-like garage apartment, he supports himself on under-the-table fix-it work while wrestling with nightmares of what happened in Iraq. But his minimal existence is about to end with very dire consequences.
Within the first twenty-four hours of this one-week, fast-paced thriller, he is involved in a major robbery, meets a woman with a mysterious past and crosses paths with a psychotically polite killer called Jagger. Something very valuable has been taken from a mob-run bank and now everyone is after Alby. Despite his life being on the line, all he can think about is the alluring and volatile dancer. As it all comes to a head, Alby knows his choices are few and his fate could go either way.
Break the Bank—volume 1 of 3—is based on a true story. Told to the author by his father, it is the true story of a mob bank getting ripped off and the ensuing violent consequences.
About the Author
A.E.S. O’Neill grew up going to a private school paid for by a mobster father, rocks out to the Grateful Dead and Beethoven for inspiration, reads comics to never lose his inner child, and disregards most of society’s rules—except for the importance of decency, empathy, and humanity. Roll it all up? He gathers and tells stories.
After several decades of film school, professional writing, public speaking, and travel blogging (www.outspokentraveler.com) experience, his debut novel, Even a Pandemic Can’t Stop Love and Murder, a three-volume, romance/thriller that takes place in the mid-2020s, is based on a true story. Told to him by his father years ago, the plot centers on a robbery at a mob-owned bank and the violent consequences that followed.
From a childhood marked by wiretaps, mob dinners, and FBI agents following his father, O’Neill learned to understand the complexities of love, crime, and human behavior that drive right and wrong. Inspired by the snappy patter of 1930s talkies, and the mundane, ever-present danger of the Pandemic Era, he used this story to show what he believes are the major themes in human behavior: the interplay of light and dark, of love and death, of choices made and lived with. Despite all of his own life’s more challenging lessons, O’Neill knows that love will always win.
Two subsequent volumes in the Even a Pandemic series—Paying the Price (cover below) and Checking Out—are soon to come. www.evenapandemic.com
