By Hank Russell and Steve Levy
Long Island Life & Politics is premiering a new section on books being published by local authors. Today, we will spotlight Tuxedo Park, the debut novel from Tom Kenniff. The author/attorney is known for representing high-profile criminal defendants, including former U.S. Marine and New York City subway hero Daniel Penny.
In Tuxedo Park, behind every great candidate is a greater cover-up. The book’s protagonist, attorney John Palmer, is awoken by an early-morning phone call summoning him to a crime scene unfolding in New York’s storied Tuxedo Park, involving his old summer flame, Susan Sterling.
The pair had taken very different paths since their carefree teenage days: Susan reveled in the jet-set world of fashion modeling, whereas John charted a decidedly less glamorous course prosecuting bad guys in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. Yet their worlds collide again after Susan goes missing on an evening run in the park.
John is asked to moonlight on the case with his old mentor, Don Haggerty. As the trail of evidence eventually leads to president-elect Kent Dawson, John is in a race against time, trying to stop a cold-blooded sociopath before he takes the nation’s highest office. To succeed, he must overcome bureaucratic obstruction, political henchmen, and his own guilt over his and Susan’s buried romantic past.
Kenniff is an attorney with the New York City law firm Raiser Kenniff & Lonstein, P.C. He previously served as an assistant district attorney under Jeanine Pirro and was a nominee for Manhattan District Attorney.
He is also a retired major in the Army National Guard Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps and a veteran of the Iraq War, where he earned the Army Commendation Medal and the Global War on Terrorism Medal. He is the recipient of the Ronald Reagan Award for the Advancement of Individual Liberty, the Marine Corps League Appreciation Award, and is an inductee in the Massapequa High School Hall of Fame. He lectures regularly to legal organizations, and his expertise is sought by major media outlets, including The New York Times, CNN, and Fox News.
Kenniff is a graduate of the University of Rochester and the Hofstra University School of Law. He lives in Oyster Bay with his wife, Emily, and their children, and plays ice hockey in his free time.
The book has already received glowing reviews. WABC Radio host Sid Rosenberg called it “a hard-hitting legal thriller.” Bravo TV star Jill Zarin said, “Tuxedo Park delivers both tantalizing legal and human drama.” Civil rights attorney Ron Kuby said Tuxedo Park is a “gem of a debut novel” that “combines deep legal acumen and accuracy with a series of engaging and entirely plausible plot twists.” Pirro added, “Only a veteran prosecutor and criminal defense attorney could write a novel as authentic and compelling as Tom Kenniff does.”
Tuxedo Park is published by Post Hill Press.