I was born in Italy and arrived in the United States at the age of three. My family settled in Chicago for a couple years, then moved to the southwest suburb of Hickory Hills where I lived until I joined the Air Force. My parents enrolled me in Catholic School for the entire eight years of elementary school. It had the opposite effect they intended. I was uncomfortable with the apparent androgyny of the abusive nuns. I was mortified by the graphic descriptions of the suffering of the one they call Jesus. I was put off by the incessant indoctrination of the religion through almost every subject. However, I am not an atheist. After graduating public high school, I was admitted to the University of Illinois, Chicago for architecture. I earned a professional degree in 1981. With a twenty-seven percent unemployment rate among architects with degrees, I applied and was accepted to United States Air Force Officer Training School where graduation resulted in a commission as a second lieutenant. I stayed in the Air Force until I was granted an honorable discharge as part of a reduction in force in 1995. After sixteen years of working my way up to principal level in a major global firm, I applied to the United States Army Corps of Engineers in 2012. I am a design manager responsible for the quality and completeness of design projects for construction valued at just under one billion dollars for bases in the Middle East. I have the pleasure of living in rural West Virginia where my wife, our adopted grandson, and our two older rescue mutts work and play on six acres of woods, high grass, and wild flowers. My first novel, The Disclosure Paradox was published late October 2019. It continues to receive high ratings and excellent reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. There are approximately four hundred copies in circulation – mostly as e-books. This second novel is actually a prequel to the first novel.