Author Jim Melvin, a buddy of COVERT co-author Dave Scheiber, wrote the following review of Covert, My Years Infiltrating the Mob. Melvin said the words, I did not, but I agree. It is a "A bestseller on the horizon..."
No, not my series ... at least not yet. But a dear friend of mine has a book debuting in February that has bestseller written all over it.
Nationally recognized sportswriter Dave Scheiber of the St. Petersburg Times (where I also worked for 25 years) has cowritten a book with NBA referee Bob Delaney called Covert: My Years Infiltrating the Mob. Delaney is a force of nature, and when he enters a room, all eyes turn. He also is a dynamic and polished public speaker. The book will debut on Feb. 1 and is being published by Union Square Press, an imprint of Sterling (which is owned by Barnes and Noble). Needless to say, it should debut high on the nonfiction list and is likely to be headed soon to the big screen.
Here's the description that runs on Amazon.
Book Description
In a riveting page-turner, NBA referee Bob Delaney reveals the clandestine life he led before becoming one of professional basketball’s most respected referees.
In 1975, Delaney had spent only a year and a half as a New Jersey State Trooper when his superiors approached him with a tantalizing yet dangerous undercover assignment: to infiltrate the Mob. Delaney accepted, and became Bobby Covert, the president of Alamo Trucking, a fully-operational business used by law enforcement as flypaper for snagging crooks.
At the height of The Godfather era, Delaney wore a wire and lived among wiseguys who modeled themselves on their on-screen counterparts, quoting lines from “The Movie” and boasting of how often they’d seen it. Delaney even crossed paths with Joe Pistone, the real-life Donnie Brasco (though neither knew the other was undercover), knowing all the while that a single slip could get him killed.
Ultimately gathering enough evidence to convict 30 members of the Bruno and Genovese crime families, Project Alpha was a success, but Delaney struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder and traces of Stockholm syndrome after getting too close to those he investigated. Therapy helped him come to terms with all he’d endured during his three tense years undercover, and, once a college basketball star, Delaney began officiating high school and intramural games as a way to rebuild his life—eventually working his way up to the NBA, where he has been a referee for more than two decades.
This is his amazing true story, with a foreword by NBA great and current TV commentator Bill Walton.
My agent, Uwe Stender, represents this book, and Dave mentions me and The Death Wizard Chronicles in the acknowledgements. So, my series will be a bestseller -- at least in that regard!
I've known Dave for more than 30 years, and he is one of the greatest people I have ever met. There is no nicer or more deserving guy on the planet. I wish him the best of luck.
But in this case, Dave doesn't need it. Thanks to Bob Delaney's amazing life and Dave Scheiber's amazing abilities as a writer, Covert is a lock.
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