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The Possibilities Are Endless
Solitaire follows a journalist and a ghostlike operator as they dive headfirst into the murder investigation of the deputy mayor and uncover layers of city corruption. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
Having served as a New York City Police Officer for twenty years, and later as a New York City mayoral candidate in 2020, I’ve had a unique view from both sides of the system: the complex, often polarizing world of law enforcement in the nation’s largest city, and the backroom deals and money-driven machinery of big-city politics. In Solitaire, those two worlds collide, as they often do in real life. Our struggling cities are searching for someone who can rise above the corruption and chaos, and that’s where Solitaire comes in.
How close do you think fiction like this comes to real-world possibilities?
In the rapidly expanding world of AI, I think the possibilities are endless—and not all of them are good. The idea of a system that can not only predict outcomes, but potentially shape or control them, no longer feels far-fetched. That possibility was one of the driving forces behind Solitaire.
The story moves at a fast, cinematic pace—how do you maintain momentum without losing depth?
For me, every chapter has to move the story forward. Whether it’s an action sequence or a quiet conversation between two characters, the reader has to understand what is driving the people on the page. If the characters’ motivations stay clear, the momentum stays strong because the reader remains invested in what happens next.
Can we look forward to more work from you soon? What are you currently working on?
I’m currently working on the follow-up to Solitaire. Sloane’s story is far from over, and Book Two raises the stakes significantly. I’m targeting a 2027 release, and I think readers will be very excited about where the story goes next.
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A private surveillance empire.
A ghost in the darkness.
When a Times Square shooting leaves a deputy mayor dead, the FBI investigation leads to KATSAI- an AI intelligence network that enhances public safety while also deciding outcomes, prosecutions and elections.
KATSAI decides who rises, and who disappears.
Once an investigative journalist becomes a target, Agents Devi and West are cut off by both New York City and Washington, DC political machines. Their only ally is a man who doesn’t exist- Solitaire, a covert operative
hunted across the globe with a personal stake in burning KATSAI to the ground.
If Solitaire fails and KATSAI survives, ballots are just theatre.
The flash drive decides.
Solitaire
Solitaire is a political thriller with a strong espionage pulse, and it opens by dropping us straight into a public shooting in Times Square that turns a mayoral campaign into a conspiracy story about surveillance, synthetic identities, and power hiding behind official systems. At the center are Grace Delgado, a relentless New York journalist, and Michael Sloane, a ghostlike operator tied to the Ace of Spades and a trail of old secrets, as they circle the murder of Deputy Mayor Robert Caldwell and the shadow network called KATSAI. What starts as a city corruption story grows into something broader and darker, with fake donors, weaponized tech, and a private apparatus trying to bend politics into obedience.
I really enjoyed the book’s momentum. Author Bill Pepitone writes like someone who knows how institutions sound from the inside, and that gives the novel a kind of hard floor under its feet. The scenes in City Hall, the FBI office, and the street-level New York moments have a lived-in feel that kept me leaning forward. I also liked that the book doesn’t pretend its people are clean heroes. Grace is stubborn, emotional, and smart in a way that gets her into trouble. Sloane is built like myth, but the book keeps trying to press bruises under the myth, especially in the quieter moments when his control slips. The dialogue can sometimes feel like everyone has a comeback in the chamber, but even then, the energy carries it.
I found the author’s choices around KATSAI and the fake donor machinery especially interesting because the book isn’t just chasing thrills for their own sake. It’s clearly interested in what happens when surveillance stops being a tool and starts becoming a nervous system for power. That idea lands. The novel’s best move, for me, is that it keeps tying giant systems back to private fear: Caldwell hiding a drive behind a picture frame, Shaw collapsing under pressure, Grace realizing too late that information itself can act like a flare in the dark. There is a pulp sheen to some of it, sure, and Sloane sometimes feels almost too competent, but that is also part of the book’s genre DNA. This is an espionage thriller fiction that wants to be sleek, tense, and a little larger than life, while still keeping one foot in recognizable political rot.
I came away feeling that Solitaire knows exactly what shelf it wants to sit on. It’s the kind of book I would recommend to readers who like conspiracy-driven thrillers, cat-and-mouse espionage, and stories where modern tech and old-fashioned power games collide in the same room. If you enjoy fast, cinematic fiction with a political edge, a wounded central duo, and a hero who moves through the world like a rumor with a passport, this will be very much your thing.
Pages: 259 | ISBN : 9781105802713
