Welcome to another stage in my writing career. I started out as a broadcast journalist, became a newspaper reporter, then a publicist and back to print journalism.  Other than TV anchor types, most journalists will never get rich. Many will even tell you to take another career path if wealth and a luxurious lifestyle are your goals.  Then why be a journalist?  I can’t answer for others, but for me, it often was a lot more fun than almost any other job you can imagine.  Every day was different. 

Over the years, all those differences added up to incredible experiences, the kind of stuff that led former journalist and British intelligence officer Ian Fleming to write the James Bond Series and Los Angeles Police Officer Joseph Wambaugh to write the Police Story Series and several police procedural novels. 

As a younger reporter I spent my days in police stations and courthouses.  Most of my off-duty time was spent with cops from various departments, covering the gamut of activity from mind-numbing hours on late night patrols in suburban neighborhoods, to white-knuckle high speed chases. Other times it was kicking down doors on narcotics raids or standing next to homicide detectives as they investigated murders ranging from routine to the absurd.  Then there were the gut-wrenching crimes, the sex crimes, and there even was the period when the U.S. went a bit mad and re-fought the Civil War during race riots on streets of cities large and small. At one point I worked as a sheriff’s deputy for yet another perspective.

During two and a half years as a military broadcast journalist with the U.S. Army in Europe I gained a deep sense of history and its impact on life.  I also endured the European Cold War during some of its tensest moments: moments of full alert when the slightest provocation could have sent Soviet tanks into Western Europe in combat that almost certainly would have led to nuclear war. I also learned there are varying degrees of freedom ranging from that of the U.S. -- to more limited forms in some European countries -- to the total lack of freedom in some Soviet-bloc nations. 

Now, I’m combining my life experiences and trying my hand at fictionalized recountings of what I’ve seen and learned.  It’s been a fun life for me, and I’m hoping my books will be both fun and enlightening for you.  Swimming Kangaroo Books is releasing my first mystery novel INSIDE STORY: Murder in the Pinelands in early November.  I hope you’ll enjoy it.

Larry Moniz