The Ten Count

The brutal throat-slashing murder of Crawford Academy's football coach has the city on edge. The fact that his body was found in the gay section of Jefferson Park has created more than a few whispers about the macho coach. That creeps social worker Duffy Dombrowski out enough, but not nearly as much as the fact that the kid he's counseling said he wanted to slit the coach's throat the day before. Now Duffy is assigned to the high school as a grief counselor, and before he can confront his client, the kid gets beaten into a coma by the captain of the football team. As rumors of a high school sex club run rampant, murder becomes routine in Crawford, until a victim is someone close to Duffy. Everything points to the coach's sex life, his players, and maybe to the coach leading the team into a different arena. Duffy is not so sure. Add in a new love affair with TJ Dunn, a concussion that might drive Duff out of the boxing game, and the daily challenges of Al the Basset Hound, and you have the fastest paced, most complex, and culturally challenging Duffy mystery yet. Tom Schreck has written on topics as broad as boxing, business, pets, fitness, psychology, relationships, golf, diners, drive-ins and prison for publications that include The Business Review, Fightnews.com, Westchester Magazine, American Health and Fitness, Professional Counselor and Catfancy, among others.A former director of an inner city drug clinic and now a world championship boxing official, Schreck has combined his varied experience and created his first novel. On the Ropes is the story of a drug counseling professional fighter, his Black Muslim basset hound, and their pursuit to save a kidnapped little girl while foiling a terrorist plot to blow up Yankee Stadium.Tom Schreck graduated from The University of Notre Dame and has a master's degree in Psychology. He lives in Albany, New York.