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Gerald Petievich has been an Army
counterspy and a U.S. Secret Service agent. He uses his real life experiences
to achieve realism in his fiction. His novels are known to come as close as any in the mystery and thriller genres to a genuine
realism. Two of his novels have been produced as major motion pictures and his latest book "The Sentinel" has been optioned
for film by Michael Douglas, who will both produce and star in the movie.
According to the book description of the Sentinel, “Former
Secret Service agent-and bestselling phenomenon-Gerald Petievich returns with the ultimate Secret Service thriller. When a White House agent is murdered, another agent fears he's being framed. He
has the motive: to hide his affair with the First Lady. And someone has the photos to prove it. To clear his name, he must infiltrate the President's
most powerful circles of defense, outguess a killer's next move-and trust no one.” According
to the book description of The Quality of the Informant, “Charles Carr, T-Man, depends heavily
on informants in his pursuit of pushers, passers, and makers of "paper" - all those in the thriving business of
counterfeiting. Informants are as much a part of the seamy, violent Los Angeles underworld as are the crooks they inform on,
and they are crucial to Carr's effort to track down Paul LaMonica, a smooth thug whose skill at manufacturing paper is
matched by his murderous amorality.
There are a great many victims in the
bloody chase LaMonica leads Carr, a trail that runs from L.A. to Houston to San Diego to Ensenada, Mexico - and the informants
are among them; informing is a dangerous game. As readers of Gerald Petievich's earlier books know, the excitement of
the pursuit is matched by the vivid authenticity of the gritty world he depicts. Conventional.”
Publisher’s Weekly said of Earth
Angels, “The author of the brutally violent To Live and Die in L.A. turns the trick again in this grisly
novel that begins with the accidental murder of a little girl. L.A. detective sergeant Jose Stepanovich heads a newly formed
four-member anti-gang unit striving to neutralize gang activity that has been polluting the barrio of East L.A. for generations.
An innocent bystander, the girl is killed by an errant bullet fired during gang drive-by. Unfortunately, since evidence is
hard to come by, and witnesses harder still, the unit fails to solve the crime. When one member of the elite unit is murdered
during another drive-by, Stepanovich and his remaining cohorts take on both gangs. Many gory deaths later, Stepanovich has
been transformed into the beast he once hunted. Petievich's graphic descriptions of the violence and of a gang psychology
that leans heavily on retribution and machisimo are the only saving elements in an eminently predictable storyline littered
with one-dimensional characters. The reader is hard pressed to feel any emotion for the players in this saga of violence,
in which texture is substituted for depth.”
Publisher’s Weekly said of Paramour:
2, “One major, perhaps fatal flaw mars this otherwise engrossing story about espionage and political maneuvering
during the 1996 presidential campaign. Readers will guess early on that Secret Service agent Jack Powers is being set up,
a possibility that escapes him until this thriller's conclusion. The murder of a fellow agent in the White House is made
to look like a suicide. After Powers interviews a defecting Syrian colonel, who implicates the dead agent as a spy, he is
asked to tail a beautiful CIA operative whose government ID was found in the dead man's room and who is reportedly having
an affair with the President (currently trailing in a tough reelection campaign). Powers follows her to Germany, where they
become romantically involved; she then gives him the slip and is reported as having defected to Syria. Disgraced, Powers must
resign from the Secret Service, but when another agent learns that more is going on than appears on the surface, he and Powers
set out to make things right. Petievich (To Live and Die in L.A.), a former Secret Service agent, was a bodyguard for four
presidents.”
According to the book description of
Money Men, “Charlie Carr is Petievich's ruthless T-Man, a hard-nosed detective in the
gutsy, no-nonsense tradition of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. In Money Men, Carr is hot on the trail of two thugs
who have gunned down a young undercover agent - a torturous trail that will lead from the smoke-filled hangouts of sordid
Chinatown, to a desperate scheme to steal counterfeit money from counterfeiters themselves, and finally, to a brutal blood-drenched
confrontation in a magnificent penthouse overlooking the streets of LA's seamy underworld.”
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Publisher’s Weekly said of Shakedown,
“FBI Special Agent John isn't going any place special in the Bureauhe is too honest and unpolitical. After 15 years
of service, he knows that the Las Vegas-based Organized Crime Strike Force is a dumping ground for misfits like himself. But
he does have a mission in life, and that is to lock up Tony Parisi, a vicious hood who exercises a stranglehold over the town,
partly by intimidation and partly through political connections. Novak's best hope of convicting Parisi lies in the testimony
of a lesser hood, Bruno Santoro. Unfortunately, Parisi's gang murders Bruno before the Feds can put him in front of the
grand jury. An alternative potential witness against Parisi is rogue cop Eddie Sands, an extortionist and ex-con married to
a phony stock and investment scam artist. Eddie would rather die than fink on the other thugs, but agent Novak finally finds
a way to make his case. The characters here are almost uniformly disreputable, including the putative white hats. (For example,
a Federal Judge allows the FBI agent to make love to her in court chambers.) As he proved with To Live and Die in L.A., Petievich's
thrillers add up to rough and ready entertainment.”
According to the book description of
To Die in Beverly Hills, “US Treasury Agents Charlie Carr and Jack Kelly, investigating a
counterfeiting ring, are tipped off by Detective Travis Bailey of the L.A. police - a cool, ruthless cop with some strange
tastes in sex and women - who warns them of a plot to murder their prime witness. Unwittingly, they are involved in a phony
stake-out in which Kelly is seriously wounded. Deeply suspicious and determined to avenge his partner,
Carr puts his life and career on the line in order to build a case against Bailey, and sets out to prove that he is the mastermind
behind a series of robberies from the area's wealthy residents. Carr's mission draws him into the depths of moneyed
Beverly Hills, as well as into the underworld of have-nots, hungry for a piece of the Rolls-Royce action.”
According to the book description of
To Live and Die in LA, “is a harrowing tale, which has become a major motion picture, of cult
status, depicting the dark underside of America's "West Coast" metropolis. Two U.S. Treasury agents, both partners
and antagonists, are drawn into a matrix of violence and corruption, L.A. style, a journey through a sunlit hell. At the end,
they become experts on the thin line which separates what it takes to live - and to die - in L.A.”
About the United States Secret Service
The Secret Service Division was created on July 5, 1865 in Washington, D.C., to suppress counterfeit
currency. Chief William P. Wood was sworn in by Secretary of the Treasury Hugh McCulloch. In 1901, Congress informally requested Secret Service Presidential protection following the assassination of President William
McKinley. In 1902, The Secret Service assumed full-time responsibility for protection
of the President. Two operatives were assigned full time to the White House Detail.
In 2002, as part of the federal reorganization, the Secret Service was transferred to the Department of Homeland Security.
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