Captain Moretti's Daughter

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Living on the Italian cargo ship Il Destino with her father, the ship’s captain, would seem to be an ideal situation for 15-year-old Frankie Moretti, whose mother has recently died. But there’s a murderer on board looking for a document that he must find to avoid certain death from his country’s vicious secret service thugs. Knowing only that there is a possibility of a killer being on the ship, Frankie’s father, fearing for his daughter’s safety, plans to send her back to her aunt and uncle in Baltimore, where she was deeply unhappy. To avoid this, Frankie is forced to become a teenage crime detective. 

Her adventures begin in Baltimore, continue in New Orleans, and then on Il Destino as it crosses the Atlantic. While Frankie continues her detecting, the killer continues his search. If he doesn’t succeed, he will resort to his back-up plan: kidnap the captain’s daughter and hold her hostage until the captain and his crew find the document.

Set in 1960, Captain Moretti’s Daughter is the story of a brave, plucky and smart teenager determined to do anything in her power to stay with her father.

GET ONCE UPON A TIME IN BALTIMORE HERE

As children in 1918 Baltimore, Annie, an Irish American girl, and Vince, the son of Sicilian immigrants, both lose loved ones Annie’s father and sister to the Spanish flu and Vince‘s brother to an auto accident. The tragedies change how each of them face the world and—after they meet and wed—how they relate to each other. Together and sometimes apart, they overcome discrimination, illness, a family rift, a son going off to war, and marital strains caused by Vince’s ambitions and marital infidelity and Annie’s

passivity and fear of change.

With its focus on the children of immigrants in a major US city, Once Upon a Time in

Baltimore presents a vivid and moving picture of family struggles and triumphs amid the ever-changing social mores, historical upheavals, and dark challenges of 20th century America.

   As the managing director of the Business Communications Group, I completed a wide variety of writing assignments for business, industry and government, and served as a ghost writer for the autobiography of the founder of an American business. I hold a master's degree in English Language and Literature from the University of Maryland, College Park, and have taught technical writing and English composition at Montgomery College in Rockville, Maryland. 

Currently, I am working on a sequel to my debut novel, which follows the lives of the four offspring introduced in Once Upon a Time in Baltimore.  As a final book in this family saga, I plan a prequel featuring the parents of the two main characters of Once Upon a Time and their early lives on the islands of Ireland and Sicily.  In addition, I recently completed a Young Adult mystery entitled, Captain Moretti’s Daughter.