Jake McNicholas

Jimmy McTigue and the boys from Manhattan North Narcotics are doing “God’s work,” making collars and kicking down doors up above 96th Street in places like Harlem, Spanish Harlem, and Washington Heights—all the while having laughs. But when movie star Meg Cassidy, Artie Levin, her obnoxious agent, and the up-and-coming rapper he represents (hip-hopping about Jihad, no less) arrive on the scene, things are bound to get dicey—and they do!

The “cop talk” is authentic, ibecause McNicholas is a retired NYPD Detective. Manhattan North Narcotics: Chasing the Kilo Fairy is replete with the sarcasm, humor and political incorrectness one would expect from a bunch of working cops.  

KUDOS for Manhattan North Narcotics: Chasing the Kilo Fairy

“Captures every nuance of the surreal, sublime, grit, charm, and danger of being a narcotics detective in Manhattan North, which figuratively . . .  is about a million miles from Midtown. McNicholas takes you on wild ride in this wonderfully unique, engaging . . . frightening tale of what it really means to chase the kilo fairy – one vial at a time.”

—Robert Mladinich, author or co-author of From the Mouth of the Monster: The Joel Rifkin Story and Undisclosed Files of the Police: Cases from the Archives of the NYPD from 1831 to the Present.  He is also the writer and editor of Frontline, the publication for the NYPD Sergeants Benevolent Association.

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“McNicholas brings the dangerous world of narcotics enforcement in New York City to life like no other. The cops are gritty, witty and sometimes giddy. Readers tag along with Detective Jimmy McTigue and his partner Bobby Washington onto the narcotics sets, the borough office and after-hours hangouts feeling as if they’re part of the team. The banter between the cops, who simultaneously seem to love and hate their job, is brutally honest. Politics be damned, McNicholas does not hold anything back. It might be fiction, but one thing is for certain, McNicholas gives readers an insider’s view of the “God’s” work being performed by the brave men and women assigned to the NYPD’s Narcotics Division.”

—Bernard Whalen, NYPD Lieutenant, is co-author of Justifiable Homicide; The NYPD’s First Fifty Years—Politicians, Police Commissioners, and Patrolmen; and Undisclosed Files of the Polilce—Cases  From the Archives of the NYPD.      

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“McNicholas has hit it out of the park with his first novel about the gritty and violent world faced by NYPD narcotics detectives.  He shows his detectives to be as I know them to be: ordinary, yet dedicated, working men and women who reflect, in their war-zone humor and personalities, what it's like to work almost daily in an atmosphere besieged by crime.  The plot is intriguing, the characters are well developed, and the writing style makes for engrossing, difficult-to-take-a-break-from, reading.  It brought me right back to my days ‘on the job’ .”

—Christopher J. Freitag, a retired Captain, Fair Lawn, NJ, Police Department (27 years service) was organizer and commander of the Fair Lawn Emergency Response Team (SWAT-type unit) for 15 years; an FBI Certified Firearms Instructor and firearms instructor at the Fair Lawn Police and Bergen County Police Academies.  He is also co-author of the State of New Jersey Auxiliary Police Firearms Course.