John Picciano

I am a former FBI agent, retired trial attorney (2017), current jazz pianist ( now performing with a trio in several Long Island clubs) and ,in very recent years a published author. I was widowed suddenly in April 2015. I have three grown children and four young grandchildren.

I have authored and published two prior novels. The first was Liam's Promise, (Page Publishing in Manhattan) historical fiction about the flight 800 crash off Long Island, which I used as background for a compelling story about an estranged father-son relationship. The second, Corpus, (Covenant Press) is a fictional novel about an ex-con who becomes obsessed with a time travel journey search for a bizarre biblical antiquity with mystical properties.

My latest novel is titled The Brahmin Girl. I have entered this as-yet-unpublished book in this particular category in the hopes that the book manuscript, which has earned an excellent review from Kirkus Book Review, would be optioned for screen rights. In all due modesty, this story would be perfect material for a successful Netflix series, as it is very visual and panoramic in the telling, from the deep forests of Maine to the tidewater marshes of the Chesapeake Bay. It has a somewhat unorthodox format, in that it is multi narrated, by its three main characters: Police Chief Tom Bradley, who investigates an unsolved 1965 murder of a young teenaged girl in the backwoods of Maine; Darcy Farrell, a Northeastern University criminology student who, in 1985, while engaged in a summer intern program, breaks open and brilliantly solves the twenty year old cold case; and Lyle Beckwith, an FBI agent and forensics professor who marries Farrell and eventually retires from the Bureau to his family's farmhouse in Easton Maryland. In April 2010 Darcy is murdered by an unknown killer, someone believed to be a home intruder. The grieving Beckwith investigates, on his own independent rogue initiative, and determines the identity of the killer, who happens to be the same man, recently paroled , who killed the Brahmin girl forty five years earlier. Beckwith closes the story by avenging his wife's death in a most bizarre and macabre manner. To ensure accuracy, continuity and precise conformity with Bureau protocol and practice the book has been reviewed and approved by several FBI agents/supervisors .

Award Category
The investigation of the grizzly murder of an unidentified teenaged savant in Maine leads the town's police chief, a young criminology student, who solved the cold case twenty years after the fact, and a retired FBI agent through a forty five year maze of intrigue, revenge, and eventually, justice.
This submission is private and only visible to judges.

Comments

RAALee Thu, 18/08/2022 - 22:53

John, congratulations on your selection as a finalist in the Screenplay Awards Book Needing Adaptation category. I am a fellow finalist and want to wish you all the best going forward.

Best Regards,

Richard Lee