Books:
The Assassin Trilogy
Crime / Thriller Fiction
Book Two, Assassin Trilogy
In stores now
Sins of the Assassin
2008
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The year is 2043. New York and Washington D.C. have been leveled by suitcase nukes, geopolitically decapitated. Treasure-hunters now eagerly scavenge the watery ruins of the sunken city of New Orleans, and foreign-owed factories churn out cheap goods for the rest of the world. In the aftermath of a civil war, the former United States no longer exists, and in its place two new nations maintain an uneasy coexistence.
To the west stretches an Islamic republic governed by a moderate president, but hollowed from within by the violent, repressive Black Robes, a fundamentalist group intent on crushing all those who resist their narrow version of Islam. In this frightening world, freedom is controlled by the state, homosexuality and blasphemy are capital offenses, and non-Muslims are second-class citizens at best.
To the east and south lies the Christian Bible Belt, itself torn by conflict from warring factions, each claiming themselves to be more righteous than the others, yet all motivated by the most earthly of satisfactions, greed and power. Weakened by the aftermath of the civil war, both nations are being nibbled away at the edges: Florida, now known as “Nuevo Florida,” is part of Greater Cuba; the Atzlan Empire, formerly Mexico, encroaches from the south; and Canada has laid claim to huge swaths of territory along the northern border.
What stability exists between the two nations is threatened when the president of the Republic discovers that a Belt warlord, known simply as the Colonel, is searching for a super weapon hidden inside a remote Tennessee mountain decades earlier by the old regime. Rakkim, former shadow warrior and hero of Prayers for the Assassin, is sent on a perilous mission to infiltrate the Belt and steal the weapon for the republic. Accompanying Rakkim is Leo, a naive nineteen-year-old whose technologically-enhanced brain is crucial to the success of the mission.
Rakkim and Leo’s journey through the Belt takes them from David Koresh's former Texas compound which has been reconstructed as a tourist site, to the lawless hill country where blood-thirsty, drug-addled militias prepare for the End Times. When Rakkim and Leo finally reach the Colonel’s mountain, Rakkim is forced to confront the Colonel’s enforcer, a sadistic, bullet-proof killer named Gravenholtz, and the Colonel’s wife, the alluring, sexually rapacious Baby, who wants—and gets—more of everything. Meanwhile, the Old One, a renegade billionaire who considers himself the Muslim messiah, plots his global stratagems from the safety of his ocean liner. Rakkim must be stopped, controlled, or killed if the Old One is to succeed.
Book One, Assassin Trilogy
Prayers for the Assassin
2007
Prayers for the Assassin, by Robert Ferrigno asks what would happen if the terrorists win. In 2015, after the simultaneous suitcase-nuke attacks destroy New York and Washington, D.C. --- attacks blamed on the Israeli Mossad --- a civil war breaks out. An uneasy truce leaves the nation divided between an Islamic republic with its capital in Seattle, and the Christian Bible Belt in the old South.
Book Three, Assassin TrilogY
Scheduled for 2009
Crime / Thriller Fiction
"Sharp, fast, and slick. Ferrigno can read like Raymond Chandler on speed, with pages turning and adrenaline pretty high throughout." -Kirkus Reviews
The Wake-Up
2004
Frank Thorpe, a black-ops expert, is leaving for a needed vacation when he spots a young illegal being slapped around at LAX by a hard-charging businessman. Thorpe decides to teach the businessman a lesson, to "give him a wake-up" in the parlance. It's supposed to be just a slap on the wrist before Frank gets back to his vacation, but his good deed quickly veers out of control. Enter a surfing designer-drug dealer and his ruthless, social climbing wife and her idiot, redneck brother. A sadistic hit man who worries about his cholesterol is front and center, as well as a childlike bio-engineered killer who wants to buy a roller coaster. Fun is guaranteed. The only question now is who is really getting that wake up call that Frank hoped to deliver?
Scavenger Hunt
2003
Garrett Walsh, enfante terrible filmmaker and convicted murderer, has been released from prison. When he meets Jimmy Gage, Walsh realizes he's found the perfect person to help him regain his previous stature: Walsh has a new script, The Most Dangerous Screenplay in Hollywood, one that names names and questions whether Walsh actually killed that young girl 7 years ago. Jimmy has his doubts about Walsh's veracity, but when he goes for a second round of questions Walsh is dead, The Most Dangerous Screenplay in Hollywood is AWOL, and Jimmy begins to think Walsh might have been innocent after all. With each step, Jimmy gets closer to the truth, but the closer he gets, the greater the danger. Will Jimmy find the last piece of the puzzle before the killer shuts him down?
Flinch
2001
Two brothers -- close in age, divided in heart. Two women -- passionate about both men. The Eggman -- a serial killer hunting random victims with terrible precision, proud of his accomplishments. Each of them with secrets that haunt, old debts to settle. Who will flinch first?
Heartbreaker
1999
An undercover cop is forced to witness the murder of his partner. A drug kingpin named Junior is the man who arranged the hit. Val Duran is the cop. This killing is the catalyst that sends Val on the run and Heartbreaker off and running.
Dead Silent
1996
"Ferrigno has crafted another striking fiction, truer than truth, one that will echo disturbingly through our minds and hearts long after the book's stunning climax." -New York Times Book Review
There are two people in Nick's hot tub. One is Nick's wife. The other is his former best friend. They are very naked - and very dead. Some of the cops think the killer is someone very close to Nick. The others are sure the killer is Nick. Where's a good alibi when you need it?
Dead Man's Dance
1995
A ruthless pair of quirky, sociopathic killers-for-hire. A father figure returned from the grave. A series of killings so cleverly executed that murder is not suspected in some instances - much less a connection to other deaths.
Cheshire Moon
1993
A Cheshire Moon's malevolent leer resurrects a reporter's guilt: guilt from a bad judgment call that set a killer free. Under that same moon, a TV producer is brutally killed. Then a college dropout with an Einstein IQ who fences "liberated" merchandise apparently commits suicide. But the reporter knows better, and seeks truth in the underside of Hollywood. Keeping ahead of a killer with the power and determination of a bull is harder than it seems when a Cheshire Moon smiles.
Horse Latitudes
1990
"A brilliant novel about pushing limits, violating standards, operating outside the law and seeking one's own destiny." -The San Francisco Chronicle
On the seamy side of paradise, a dangerous woman vanishes -- lost in a dark California carnival of made science, kinky sex, drug deals, sadism and murder. She has left behind a butchered corpse in a blood-soaked beach house -- and a tortured ex-dealer ex-husband who once barely escaped Hell... and now must go back to find her.