High school history teacher Cliff Chambers looked forward to a lazy summer along the Delaware Bay in sleepy quaint Fowl’s Point hoping to read a book or do some scholarly research on a poet known to Nietzsche. He didn’t expect to run into his crush Rayne and her domineering sister Sari, or to be consumed by an experimental drug dubbed the mix. Everybody wants the mix or more of it: a yacht-driving security agent armed with Slavic henchmen, aggressive restaurant and club owners, even a couple of gun-wielding nerds. They’re all willing to kill for the mix. Between attacks and abductions, betrayals and death, Cliff has experiences of love, sex and grandiosity unlike anything he ever thought possible. But what is real and what is the mix?

Shibboleth is a young adult espionage novel unlike any other. Spy novels are traditionally nations against nations. But imagine regions of our own country against other regions. A spy from the North infiltrates the South or vice versa and the only thing that could give them away is a subtle regional term or pronunciation. Do they put jimmies on their ice cream, or sprinkles? How do they say Florida? Imagine that scenario in a very feasible post-apocalyptic world, one that’s been torn apart, rendered pre-electronic from solar flares. Classic cloak and dagger, but instead of fighting "foreign" infiltrators, you’re up against people that look and act more or less just like you. More or less- the only way to know is to catch them saying the wrong thing. That's a shibboleth. 

Read more about the book here: Shibboleth.

A curmudgeon walks into a bar. His name is Mr. Kidd and the bar is called The Gates of Horn and Ivory. He embarks on an epic monologue reviewing his life and that of old friends, everything he's been through which has brought him to this point. Could he have done things differently? Did he have any choice?

What would you do to know your future? What would you give to see your ultimate fate? Who can resist such a temptation? A group of captivated Philadelphians find a man who says he knows the way, inveigling them with prophecies of things to come. Once under his influence they find it isn’t easy to get out and that his insights don’t come without a price.

What the Cyclops Saw follows the interwinding fates of mostly twenty-somethings through the nineties as well as the survivors looking back from today. A frustrated philosophy professor haunted by the past questions everything he thought he knew, a psychotic predator continues his destructive prow, an alienated and aloof ophthalmologist transgresses the borders of right and wrong. And amidst the madness of this city two sisters transplanted from the Midwest struggle not only to find themselves and thrive, but to reconnect with each other. 

Their quests for answers to life’s enigmas raise profound questions about fate, the limits of morality,  And ultimately: what will be the circumstances of your death and where will it be?

'Cherish those who seek the truth but beware of those who find it.' Voltaire

Ever since Oswald Sphinx got his claws into him in college, Tom “Turkey” Griffen hasn’t been able to live in peace. Sphinx was like nobody he had ever met: author, philosopher, existential gadfly, Europhile who would never leave Philadelphia. He held not only himself, but Tom to supreme, other-worldly standards of coolness, existential depth, and merciless nihilism. They become unlikely friends with two guys from the other side of the tracks, Cam and John: two men born of the street, both leonine, instinctive, authentic partners in crime. For years Tom lives with his conflicting roles: suburban lawyer and husband by day, by weekend night an urbane habitue of their South Street hangout The Gorgon, itself a distillation of all that is monstrous and perverse in the city. Tom thinks he has the best of both worlds, but their Bohemian idyll proves itself fragile as the real world closes in. Tom has been sold on Sphinx's world, the way of life, the Grand Enterprise. So invested, how could he live without it when things start falling apart?

Short Stories

Chuck  

Clay Winters and his family have taken in a creature, but they’re not exactly sure what it is. At first they thought it was roadkill since that’s what it looked like. It’s hairless, barely moves and prefers junk food. They name it Chuck and it becomes the family pet, replacing their missing dog Dudley. Clay tries to continue with normal life but Chuck’s unnatural presence begins unhinging his mind as he struggles to keep a grasp on what is real and what is possible.

Cold War    

A letter from a dying father to his grown son appears to be an apology for being a horrendous parent. He recalls his squandered life and how in his mind an experience in the Korean War explains his subsequent years of alcoholism, alienation and unresolved tension, how his tormented life was caused by and in many ways paralleled the Cold War.

The Errant Hunter

A hunter far from his village and seeking refuge from a snowstorm is ensnared by something uncanny: a mythological creature who asks unanswerable riddles of its victims before killing them.

To Breathe Together  

A young man living on the fringe meets like-minded Harlan. Theirs is a world of paranoia, of conspiracy, of dodging deep state surveillance. For them nothing is as it appears and everything has sinister intent. The older man captivates the younger with his insights and exploits. But talk is cheap so Harlan suggests a harmless reconnaissance field trip. That’s when things sour and then go steeply downhill, eventually proving that words and ideas aren’t harmless and can have grave consequences.