About

Dermot Sparhawk, a former All American Boston College football hero, is stacking cans in a parish food pantry in Boston's Charlestown, when his godfather, Jeepster Hennessey, shows up with a knife in his back and dies at Dermot's feet. Once slated for a professional football career, now a recovering alcoholic, with a torn-up knee, Dermot sets out to solve the murder of his godfather with the help of his Micmac Indian cousin, his paraplegic tenant, and a former teammate. Dermot's investigation has him tangling with members of the IRA, FBI, and the Boston mob. He also is forced to contend with Charlestown's code of silence and the norms of the neighborhood where he grew up. Feeling like he did at the height of his game, Dermot uses his Native American intuition and Irish good looks to help him uncover clues. Dermot stumbles upon bits and pieces of information that he cobbles together into an unlikely theory which leads him on an unexpected trail and to a new mystery that could cost him his life.

Dermot Sparhawk, a former all-American football star at Boston College, returns in Beyond the Bridge, the prequel to Tom MacDonald's award-winning debut novel, The Charlestown Connection. In Beyond the Bridge, Sparhawk, a struggling alcoholic, agrees to help find the killer of an accused pedophile priest. When two more priests are slain in Boston's Charlestown neighborhood, it becomes evident that it is the work of a sadistic serial killer who crucifies his prey after killing them. Sparhawk blazes an unconventional trail to the killer that puts him at odds with the very people he is trying to help and initiates a turf war with law enforcement. He gathers a cadre of unlikely allies, including a parish priest, a police lab criminalist, the district attorney, and a state police lieutenant who help to rebuff attempts to derail him from the case. Then, with the help of his Micmac Indian cousin and his paraplegic tenant and former Boston College teammate, Sparhawk bulldozes his way to the truth, while putting his own life at risk.

Boston Native Dermot Sparhawk is at it again. Dragged into yet another set of circumstances that he wants nothing to do with, Sparhawk is forced to call on all his connections and physical skills to keep from getting killed.  It seems that an assassin is waiting around every corner and Sparhawk doesn’t know why.  To save his own life, he works the streets of Boston, asking questions, leveraging friendships, and persuading reluctant witnesses to tell him what he needs to know.  He visits waterfront gin mills and basement AA halls in search of the truth. And the truth takes him from his native Charlestown, Massachusetts, to his ancestral Belfast, Northern Ireland, where he faces an inevitable showdown with the man attempting to kill him. 

Private investigator Dermot Sparhawk is taking on cases no one else will touch. Born and raised in the Charlestown projects in Boston, Sparhawk fights for the underdog. He calls on his connections and physical skills to keep him from getting killed. He visits Charlestown's waterfront gill mills, AA halls and travels the Historic Route 66 in search of the truth. And the truth almost kills him.

When Boston-based private eye Dermot Sparhawk is hired to investigate a New

Hampshire murder, the hair on the back of his neck stands on end, especially when

he realizes the man who wants to hire him is a New Hampshire state police

captain. Sparhawk knows that law-enforcement frowns upon departmental

outsiders, so why does Captain Raymond want him on the case?

Sparhawk’s suspicions are further piqued when the murder victim turns out

to be a vicious Charlestown criminal named Vincent Dunn, who was murdered just

eight days after his release from a federal prison. Dunn’s body was found dumped

in the Nashua River.

Sparhawk accepts the Dunn case, fully aware that it will be dangerous, but

he needs a challenge, anything to break the tedium of his daily routine. Sparhawk

gathers his posse: Harraseeket Kid, his Micmac Indian cousin; Buckley Louis, a

former Boston College football teammate and current business partner; Kenny

Bowen, a close friend with high-level contacts; and Glooscap, his sage Micmac

uncle. Together they work to keep Sparhawk safe from crooked cops, mob bosses,

and corrupt public officials. Sparhawk follows leads from New Hampshire to

Lowell to Charlestown, and from Charlestown to the surrounding Boston suburbs,

in his pursuit to solve the murder.