Kiss Me Once

von Thomas Gifford

At the start of World War II, a football star fights gangsters on the home front.

Brooklyn Bulldogs star defensive end Lew Cassidy is on his way to a touchdown when a nasty tackle snaps his leg and ends his career. When he wakes up in the hospital, he learns the Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor, and America is at war. It's a shame his busted leg will keep him out of the army, because compared to New York, war is kindergarten.

Cassidy's closest friend is Terry Leary, a homicide detective who's too slick for his own good. Just a few hours after Cassidy's injury, someone puts a bullet in Leary's spine. Cassidy leaves the hospital ready to avenge his friend - a fight that pits him against a gang of crooks who make him yearn for the comparative peace and safety of the gridiron.

Review Quote:

"An exciting story, not just a clever pastiche." - The New York Times

"One of the most robust and intelligent thriller writers of the past two decades." - Publishers Weekly

Biographical note:

Thomas Gifford (1937-2000) was a bestselling author of thriller novels. Born in Dubuque, Iowa, he moved to Minnesota after graduating from Harvard. After eight years as a traveling textbook salesman, he wrote Benchwarmer Bob (1974), a biography of Minnesota Vikings defensive end Bob Lurtsema. The Wind Chill Factor (1975), a novel about dark dealings among ex-Nazis, introduced John Cooper, a character Gifford would revisit in The First Sacrifice (1994). The Wind Chill Factor was one of several books Gifford set in and around Minneapolis.

Gifford won an Edgar Award nomination for The Cavanaugh Quest (1976). The Glendower Legacy (1978), a story about an academic who discovers that George Washington may have been a British spy, was adapted for the film Dirty Tricks (1981), starring Elliott Gould. In the 1980s Gifford wrote suspense novels under the pen names Thomas Maxwell and Dana Clarins. In 1996 he moved back to Dubuque to renovate his childhood home. He died of cancer in 2000.