Transcribed Proceedings from a Panel of Characters from the Novel, In the Shadow of the Tower, from MurderCon 1933.
Martin Hill Ortiz, Moderator: Hello. I am proud to sit here with several distinguished characters from my new novel, In the Shadow of the Tower, the third in the series of The Skyline Murder Mysteries. The story plays out in early 1933, in Manhattan, Los Angeles, and Miami. Here, today, we have the two principal heroes, Alan and Lorraine Priest, and two of their adversaries, the famed mobster Benjamin Siegel and the political assassin Giuseppe Zangara.
First of all, Mr. Priest. You have quite a fascinating background. As a young man you were a magician, a vocation you abandoned after losing your right hand in the Great War. Then you were a newsman until the Depression sent you and so many of your colleagues looking for jobs. What is it . . .
Benjamin Siegel: Hold your horses, Mr. Ortiz. My time comes more precious than Mr. Priest’s, so maybe we can wrap-up my interests here with me beginning first? And then there’s how you slurred my name calling me a mobster. (Pointing to Zangara) That greaseball is a criminal. I’m a businessman.
Giuseppe Zangara: Business? Mob? Same thing. All dem tycoons, they be gangsters. All dem got coming a bullet.
Martin Hill Ortiz, Moderator: Mr. Siegel. You are alleged to be a prolific killer for the Luciano-Costello gang, so violent that you earned the nickname “Bugsy.”
Benjamin Siegel: Bugsy? You dare call me Bugsy? “Bugsy” speaks of them dried-out rummies sweating in drunk tanks, scratching to bleeding their arms and their legs, all the time saying how they is covered with ants. Am I like that? I’m as honest as a sober judge, if you could ever find one. Heh.
I am legit. My only racket is Hollywood.
Alan Priest: Hollywood is a huge racket. Organized crime busting unions. Funding studios. Assaulting starlets.
Martin Hill Ortiz, Moderator: Ahem. Speaking of Hollywood, Lorraine Priest. You have spent the last few years as a magazine model. Recently, you have been partnering with a model of the giant ape, the sensational King Kong.
Lorraine Priest: Just for publicity shoots. Fay Wray, the real star of the film, is busy with other projects.
Martin Hill Ortiz, Moderator: How is it that you became involved in the whole mess recounted in the novel, with underworld characters and assassins?
Lorraine Priest: A dying vagrant inserted himself at the site of a King Kong photo shoot. At the foot of the Empire State Building. Through him we learned of a threat against the president.
Alan Priest: My wife is a very intrepid and enterprising woman. And, when she catches hold of a serious situation, she won’t let go.
Lorraine Priest: Alan is hardly shy in his pursuits. Together, we followed Mr. Zangara to Florida and to a Roosevelt rally.
Benjamin Siegel: Mr. Alan and Lorraine shouldn’t bother their selves sticking their noses where they got no business. Bullets got no respect for heroes.
Martin Hill Ortiz, Moderator: Giuseppe Zangara. Joe. Were you serious in your threats against the president?
Giuseppe Zangara: Don’t call me Giuseppe and Joe. Giuseppe is Joe. You are ignorant.
Martin Hill Ortiz, Moderator: Did you threaten to kill the president?
Giuseppe Zangara: I threaten everybody.
Martin Hill Ortiz, Moderator: And do you mean it?
Giuseppe Zangara: I don’t got the bullets to kill everybody. Don’t got the time. So, maybe I kill Roosevelt. Maybe I kill Hoover. I got bullets for a few.
Benjamin Siegel: You think I’d work with a goofball like Zangara? What does any of this have to do with me?
Alan Priest: That’s the million-dollar question.
Martin Hill Ortiz, Moderator: And for its answer you will need to read In the Shadow of the Tower, from Oliver-Heber Books. I’d like to thank my panelists for joining me here.
Benjamin Siegel: (hurling his microphone) Yeah? Well, screw you.
Want to see more of this rowdy bunch of characters? Check out In the Shadow of the Tower, coming out April 7th!
A nation on edge. A city crawling with gangsters. A plot that could change history forever.
Miami, 1933. The nation is in the grip of the Great Depression, and former New York World reporter Alan Priest is struggling to survive as a freelance journalist. His wife, Lorraine, once a sought-after magazine model, is watching her own career fade with the times. Together, they are drawn into a dangerous investigation that reaches far beyond headlines and photographs.
When Alan and Lorraine uncover a mob conspiracy to assassinate President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, they find themselves racing against time-and against forces far more powerful than they imagined. To stop the plot, the intrepid pair must navigate a maze of corruption, betrayal, and shifting loyalties, battling ruthless gangsters and questioning even those who claim to be allies.
With history hanging in the balance and no one they can fully trust, Alan and Lorraine must risk everything to prevent a murder that would alter the course of the nation.
In the Shadow of the Tower delivers a tense, fast-moving historical mystery set against the economic despair and political intrigue of Depression-era America. Blending real historical stakes with relentless suspense, Book Three of the Skyline Murder Series follows a journalist couple whose pursuit of truth may alter the course of history itself.
PERFECT FOR READERS WHO LOVE:
- Depression-era mysteries with real historical stakes
- Journalist couples investigating dangerous conspiracies
- Mob intrigue and political assassinations
- Fast-paced suspense with shifting loyalties
- Stories where truth could rewrite history
Preorder it here: https://books2read.com/u/4DvWj7
Meet Martin Hill Ortiz:
Martin Hill Ortiz, a native of Santa Fe, New Mexico, is a professor at the Ponce University of Health Sciences in Ponce, Puerto Rico, where he lives.
This is his third novel with OHB and, on top of several other novels, he has had over fifty of his short stories appear in journals and anthologies, including Mystery Magazine, Miami Accent, Belanger Books’ Sherlock Holmes anthologies, and Over My Dead Body.
An award winning poet, in addition to his scientific background, he has worked in theater, having operated a comedy troupe in South Florida.
You can follow him on Bookbub or find him on his blog, It’s Harder Not To.
