Recent Novels
1937. New York Daily Mirror photographer Hugh McNeill follows crusading reporter Cass Green as she investigates a possible serial killer: a prostitute doing away with her clients one by one. Cass’s investigation results in the attention of a rogue mobster who’s been moving in on Lucky Luciano’s prostitution rackets and is now trying to kill her.
Blog Posts
A Time for Books
I have finally done something I had promised to do here years ago. But it is posted at the Bookshop site under 'annotations.' https://avenuevictorhugobooks.com/annotations/
In the last days of the Republic
I first knowingly encountered the Administrative State in 1972 when I went to City Hall in Boston to get a peddler’s license so that I might sell books and magazines on the street. I was under the delusion (illusion is too kind) that the First Amendment to the...
About the knight’s tale
In related matters, my new novel, The knight’s tale, a story of the future, is now available in paperback from the mighty Amazon as well as in at least one fine bookshop. This novel was written a few years ago but only available until now in parts on my website. It...
Asger Hamerik
How is it that such a great composer as Asger Hamerik can be so forgotten? Can the mediocrity of our age actually be so overwhelming as to ignore even that rare genius who survived the smothering of the ‘modern’ to produce seven wonderful symphonies and an...
Praise for Vincent McCaffrey’s Writing
“McCaffrey is never cloying or playing to demographic. He’s just telling a compelling, old-school yarn, the kind of story a man who knows his literature tells.”
“Vincent McCaffrey is obviously a man so well read that he seems to have gleaned a deep understanding of human nature from his studies. His characters are appealing and sympathetic and his story well plotted. I look forward to his next novel after what was a most enjoyable debut.”
“McCaffrey has a gift for crafting quirky characters and original dialogue…”
Recent Short Stories
Small Men
September 12th, 1868 Dear Philip, As you might imagine, I was quite surprised to see a notice in the Herald that you had returned to New York and opened your own practice. Congratulations! I do hope you are well otherwise. Indeed, the notice refers to a Mr. and Mrs.,...
An Unusual Happenstance
You get to a point in life where you ought to make out a will. I’m passed that. You get to a point in life where you wonder if any of it—all the things you did or did not do—will be remembered, and for how long. Not whether or not any of it should be remembered....
Live Oak
As the story was told, they had met in a hot tub and he had asked her to marry him twenty minutes later; they had eight kids, and after another fifty years, he had died only a month after her own passing. It was the kind of thing you hear and don’t believe for a...
The Faith in Dreams
The faith in dreams, like the beliefs of small and ancient religions, is often lost with the simple passage of time. Mere time. Simply forgotten. A figment of midnight delusion at midday. Too vague to grasp. We all remember the faith we once had in our fathers, or...