Hard Guys Cry
Law, faith, and the price of a soul. A message of resilience for anyone who has felt beyond redemption.
Former Chief of the Rackets Division · Brooklyn D.A.
Stories from the courtroom.
Written by the man who lived them.
Four decades prosecuting homicide, corruption, and organized crime in Brooklyn. Now the cases that never left him become books that do not look away.
- 40+ years as a prosecutor
- ~100 homicides tried
- 10+ books & series titles
New & notable
The Sculptress — now $2.99
A gripping account of the day self-defense became a matter of life and death. Tight, unsparing true crime from the files of a working prosecutor.
Read on AmazonSeries
Fallen Angel
True crime fantasy that puts Brooklyn’s underworld under a supernatural light. Three volumes: the origin, the war for the soul of Brooklyn, and Anarchy, Chaos… Peace?
Book I on Shop Books Direct →The catalog
Exceptional books
True crime from the Rackets Division, courtroom files, and the Fallen Angel novels.
Crooked Brooklyn
Taking down corrupt judges, dirty politicians, killers, and body snatchers — from the Chief of Rackets himself. St. Martin’s Press, 2015.
Friends of the Family
The inside story of the Mafia Cops case. HarperCollins, 2009. The investigation that defined a generation of Brooklyn prosecutors.
Homicide Is My Business
Luigi “the Zip” Ronsisvalle — a hitman’s quest for honor. Released October 2022.
Behind the Murder Curtain
Special Agent Bruce Sackman hunts doctors and nurses who kill veterans. Post Hill Press, 2018.
Hand of the Killer
A homicide case that turns on a bloody handprint and a pacifier — prosecutor Mike Gioca at the center.
Murder on the Bridge
A young girl found on the Williamsburg Bridge. From the files of Mike V.
Fallen Angel
A true-crime fantasy. Brooklyn’s streets, and something older walking them.
The War for the Soul of Brooklyn
Fallen Angel continues. The city does not give up its ghosts.
Anarchy, Chaos… Peace?
The Fallen Angel trilogy closes — or does it.
The Sculptress
Domestic violence, self-defense, and the line a life can cross in a single afternoon.
The author
Michael F. Vecchione
Hofstra Law, 1973. Assistant District Attorney in Kings County the same year. Nearly one hundred homicides. Deputy Chief of the Sex Crimes Bureau. Director of the NYPD Advocate’s Office. Chief of Homicide. Chief of the Trial Division. From 2001 to 2013, principal advisor to the Brooklyn District Attorney and Chief of the Rackets Division.
He took down judges, a political boss, Mafia cops, and a surgeon who sold bone from the dead. In 2007 the Association of the Bar of the City of New York awarded him the Thomas E. Dewey Medal.
He has taught at Hofstra, Brooklyn Law School, and St. John’s, lectured at the NYPD Academy, and advised homicide detectives. The books are not research. They are the work.
- 1973 Joins Kings County D.A. as an Assistant District Attorney
- 1980 Director, NYPD Advocate’s Office
- 1992 Chief of the Homicide Bureau
- 1994 Chief of the Trial Division
- 2001–13 Chief of Rackets · advisor to the D.A.
- 2007 Thomas E. Dewey Medal
- 2009– Author: Friends of the Family through Fallen Angel and Hard Guys Cry
On screen
Press & consulting
Television
- American Greed — CNBC
- 48 Hours — CBS
- Brooklyn DA — CBS
- Good Day New York — FOX
- Mobsters — Biography Channel
- The Marvin Scott Show — WPIX
- My Life Is a Lifetime Movie — Lifetime
Technical advisor
- We Own the Night — James Gray
- Boardwalk Empire — Season 3
- Undercover Mother
Documentary
- Body Snatchers of New York — BBC / CNBC
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Readers
What they say
A brilliant book that shows that corruption is widespread. This world needs a lot more people like these.
This book really goes into detail on how these mafia cops were brought to justice. What makes it more interesting is that the authors helped do so.
Hard to put down. I read it in two days. Written in plain English — I remembered some of these characters from the newspapers.
A riveting look at a subset of crime not often discussed — medical serial killers. A must-read for healthcare investigators.
Bookings & press
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