THE SENSATIONAL HOWARD "BUDDY" JACOBSON CASE. Award-winning author Peter McCurtin, working with material documented and reviewed by Carpozi, has written a sizzling account of the case that shocked New York. When Jack Topper began dating Melanie, Jacobson offered him $100,000 to get out of town. Jack refused. Later his body was found knifed, bludgeoned, and shot seven times. When convicted murdered Jacobson shrewdly escaped from prison, one of the first people he contacted was reporter George Carpozi Jr., who had covered Jacobson's trial for the New York Post and interviewed him numerous times.

Peter J. McCurtin was born in Ireland on 15 October 1929, and immigrated to America when he was in his early twenties. Records also confirm that, in 1958, McCurtin co-edited the short-lived (one issue) New York Review with William Atkins. By the early 1960s, he was co-owner of a bookstore in Ogunquit, Maine, and often spent his summers there.
McCurtin's first book, Mafioso (1970) was nominated for the prestigious Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award, and filmed in 1973 as The Boss, with Henry Silva. More books in the same vein quickly followed, including Cosa Nostra (1971), Omerta (1972), The Syndicate (1972) and Escape From Devil's Island (1972). 1970 also saw the publication of his first "Carmody" western, Hangtown.
Peter McCurtin died in New York on 27 January 1997. His westerns in particular are distinguished by unusual plots with neatly resolved conclusions, well-drawn secondary characters, regular bursts of action and tight, smooth writing. If you haven't already checked him out, you have quite a treat in store.
McCurtin also wrote under the name of Jack Slade and Gene Curry.