The ANNOTICO Report

An unusual realistic insight into the NYC and the "underside" of life.

Newsday
Dennis Duggan
May 18, 2005

For 15 years, beginning in 1988, former cop Frank Lione worked the midnight
shift in Times Square patrolling 42nd Street - then a war zone peopled by
pimps, prostitutes and "chicken hawks" who preyed on the young.

Lione, 42, is still working that street, but as a writer, trading in his
gun for a pencil.

His first novel, "The Deuce," (Baker-Revell) was published in January.

It was co-written by his wife, Pam Lione, 43, who shares her husband's
background as well as his life. They are both Italian-Americans, both are
the children of NYPD detectives - Frank's father worked on Mayor Edward
Koch's security detail. They use the pen name F.P. Lione.

The Liones met at a cop bar on Staten Island where they lived and they were
married in 1992 and now make their home in the Poconos.

They are a sitcom in the making. Frank starts a sentence, Pam, a former
health technician, finishes with plenty of whooping and laughter. Neither
seems to mind the intrusion. This is a couple who seem welded at the hip
and if there is such a thing as a marriage made in heaven, here it is...

The two began writing their novel in 2000. They finished it in 2001, when
they began sending it to literary agents and publishers.

"I got a phone call from Pam and she said she wanted to talk to me that
night," Frank Lione said. "I thought something was wrong, but she said,
'It's OK, I just want to talk, that's all.'

"When I got home, Pam said that she wanted to write a book about New York
City cops."

She then told him that she couldn't do it without him.

"I said OK, but how do we do this?" he said.

Pam Lione went and got a tape recorder and her husband began to talk about
life as a cop. She then transcribed the tape, typing the novel's pages.

The stories spilled out of Frank, who described police work in one of the
busiest and most colorful places in the world, where 50 serious incidents a
night were the norm. Frank was one of about 400 cops who worked out of
Manhattan South, which runs from West 29th to West 45th streets and from
Ninth to Lexington avenues.

"I began writing to 10 literary agents and the seventh - a man named
Michael Valentino in Boston - said to send him the early chapters," Frank
Lione said.

Valentino found a publisher in Grand Rapids, Mich. The publisher usually
published Christian literature.

"We had never published a work of fiction written by two people," said
Lonnie Hull DuPont, acquisition director for Baker-Revell.

Still, the firm liked "The Deuce" because of the "reality of cops on the
street, cops in a crisis and cops at home," DuPont said, adding that 10,000
paperback copies have already been sold. A second book by the pair, "The
Crossroads," is expected in the fall.

DuPont said "The Deuce" is not a "pious" story. It is about two cops, one
who is turning into a drunk and a cynic, and another who leads that cop
into a life of faith. "We have not been this excited about a new novel in a
long time," DuPont said.

"Back into the late '80s and '90s, when I came on, midtown was full of
welfare hotels. Places like the Strand hotel, the Elk and the Holland were
some of the worst," says the stand-in detective reflecting Frank's own
views. "It was then I learned what the department was really about.

"The NYPD was all about numbers. Fudging the numbers to make it look like
they were keeping crime down when all they were doing was banging down the
charges.

"Robberies got banged down to grand larceny," the book's cop says, "grand
larceny to petit larceny or, if the person didn't see who took his
property, it became lost property.

"The bottom line is how many collars you got, how many tags you write and
whether they were parking or moving violations."

Frank and Pam are already working on their third book - also set in Times
Square.

"They are a delightful couple," said DuPont, who trades e-mail with Pam.

They are indeed. Full of love and laughter and confidence, even though they
are somewhat amazed that they have unconventionally embarked on a literary
life.
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