From KIRKUS: “Our verdict: Get it!" "...A rousing crime tale with an indelible cast and a sharp, edgy environment…O’Neill infuses his series opener with a perpetual sense of unease." From BlueInk “…O’Neill’s novel is an intriguing crime story packed with shady characters, double-dealing, and violence. It’s also a romantic drama about a man struggling to adjust to civilian life, PTSD, and the possibility of true love. While these conflicting narrative strands seem incompatible, O’Neill confidently weaves them into a complementary whole. Alby and Ginger’s romance is brimming with witty dialogue, comedic interludes, and conflict. As readers worry about their wellbeing, the dramatic tension becomes impactful…Alby is a believable, psychologically troubled hero, struggling to adjust to the 'small life' prescribed to him. And Ginger provides the perfect antidote to Alby’s moodiness. A decent gallery of supporting characters helps round out the narrative. However, Alby and Ginger are the novel’s driving force, and thankfully for thriller fans, they are well worth spending time with.” —BlueInk Welcome to a very possible near future where crime, murder and love seem familiar but are reshaped by the dark presence of the ongoing Pandemic. It is the mid-2020s. Alby O'Brien is hiding in southern New Jersey to avoid the wrath of terrorists who are after him. Believing he is safely hidden in his cave-like garage apartment, he supports himself on under-the-table fix-it work while wrestling with nightmares of what happened in Iraq. But his minimal existence is about to end with very dire consequences. Within the first twenty-four hours of this one-week, fast-paced thriller, he is involved in a major robbery, meets a woman with a mysterious past and crosses paths with a psychotically polite killer called Jagger. Something very valuable has been taken from a mob-run bank and now everyone is after Alby. Despite his life being on the line, all he can think about is the alluring and volatile dancer. As it all comes to a head, Alby knows his choices are few and his fate could go either way. His debut novel, Even a Pandemic Can’t Stop Love and Murder, is a romance/thriller that takes place in the near-future and is based on a true story and was highly reviewed by Kirkus, with many 4-5 Star reviews, among others. Told to him by his father years ago, the plot centers on a robbery at a mob-owned bank and the violent consequences that followed. Reviewers were torn between liking the wit and banter of the romance or the gray evil mundanity of the killer, Jagger. Even Climate Change Can’t Stop Love and Murder, Vol. 2: Paying the Price continues the adventures of Ginger and Alby, falling in love while always immersed in troubles that just seem to find them. With their search for love at its core, the story faces the reality of crossing America in 2026, fraught with insurrectionists, white supremacists, and a hitman they believe is dead. It is a story of love, a road trip West, forces of evil and good, love and murder, culminating in a violent climax at the national Pueblo monument, Tuzigoot, Arizona. We learn of Ginger’s dark past and experience the destruction of climate chaos and how it can affect many of our current societal and personal divisions. From a childhood marked by wiretaps, mob dinners, and FBI agents following his father, O’Neill learned to understand the complexities of love, crime, and human behavior that drive right and wrong, good and evil. Inspired by the snappy patter of 1930s talkies and the mundane, ever-present danger of the Pandemic Era, he used this story to show what he believes are the major themes in human behavior: the interplay of light and dark, of love and death, of choices made and lived with. Despite all of his own life’s more challenging lessons, O’Neill knows that love will always win.