The Fall of Declan Curtis - by John Jeremiah (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

"International intrigue and the Russian mob are the making of a good story ... and John Jeremiah certainly knows how to tell it." - Barthélemy Banks, Mumm Declan Curtis is a bohemian Oriental rug dealer who is fond of single malt, fine food and Emily Dickinson. His idyllic existence is disrupted when his wife runs off with a mutual friend. He starts drinking too much and taking chances. While doing business in Zurich, he is offered a dicey proposition. In Tel Aviv he meets with a mysterious paterfamilias known as "Uncle." He agrees to be a middleman in a ransom deal between Uncle's Russian Jewish family and a Russian mob in Brighton Beach in Brooklyn. This almost costs him his life and thrusts him into an underworld of thugs and murderers. In the end he has to face a dangerous mob boss on his own and make what he calls "Bonhoeffer's leap," a moral decision about dealing with an evil man.

About the Author

John Jeremiah is the product of a Jesuit education which equipped him to take any side of an argument. He hitchhiked around the USA and spent time following the Grateful Dead and trying to write short stories. His wanderings brought him to an old colonial seaport town on the Massachusetts coast. He fell in with a group of artists, writers and musicians who occupied semi-abandoned mill buildings. Eventually, he made his living restoring 17th and 18th century homes. After being disastrously burned in a house fire, he turned to the more genteel trade of antique dealer. This led to a growing expertise in antique oriental rugs. He spent many years as a gallery owner and international traveler and trader in old Persian carpets. He wrote and lectured extensively on that subject and is an internationally recognized expert. Four of his short stories have recently been published on Akashic Books' website. He is an alum of the Yale Writers' Conference in 2014 and 2015, where he workshopped part of this novel. A second book about Declan Curtis is in the works.