I am the author of several books, an Emmy-winning television producer, and a longtime Newsday investigative reporter. In 2022, I won the Columbia University Journalism School Award for career achievement. America in our times is the backdrop for my biographies, which have been singled out by critics for best-of-the-year honors. My new book "Mafia Spies" shows how the CIA recruited two gangsters to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro during the Cold War. In a starred review, Booklist called it "brilliant" and "enormous fun" and "standout" among non-fiction spy books. It's being developed by Paramount for a future TV series. My previous book, "WHEN LIONS ROAR: The Churchills and the Kennedys," (Crown) examines the relationship of the two famous dynasties and how they defined the Anglo-American "special relationship" during the 20th Century. It got rave reviews from The Washington Post and Library Journal, was excerpted in The Wall Street Journal, Time.com and Salon, gained TV appearances with Chris Matthew's "Hardball" and on "Morning Joe", made headlines in London's Daily Mail and news sites around the world, and was a featured forum at the JFK Presidential Library televised by C-Span's BOOKTV. WHEN LIONS ROAR is based on extensive research at the Churchill Archives and other repositories in the United Kingdom, the JFK Library in Boston, the FDR Library in NY, and the Library of Congress in DC. It recasts history by putting important new light on the little-known personal history between the two families and contains several important disclosures about their business an... See more

I am the author of several books, an Emmy-winning television producer, and a longtime Newsday investigative reporter. In 2022, I won the Columbia University Journalism School Award for career achievement. America in our times is the backdrop for my biographies, which have been singled out by critics for best-of-the-year honors. My new book "Mafia Spies" shows how the CIA recruited two gangsters to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro during the Cold War. In a starred review, Booklist called it "brilliant" and "enormous fun" and "standout" among non-fiction spy books. It's being developed by Paramount for a future TV series.

My previous book, "WHEN LIONS ROAR: The Churchills and the Kennedys," (Crown) examines the relationship of the two famous dynasties and how they defined the Anglo-American "special relationship" during the 20th Century. It got rave reviews from The Washington Post and Library Journal, was excerpted in The Wall Street Journal, Time.com and Salon, gained TV appearances with Chris Matthew's "Hardball" and on "Morning Joe", made headlines in London's Daily Mail and news sites around the world, and was a featured forum at the JFK Presidential Library televised by C-Span's BOOKTV. WHEN LIONS ROAR is based on extensive research at the Churchill Archives and other repositories in the United Kingdom, the JFK Library in Boston, the FDR Library in NY, and the Library of Congress in DC. It recasts history by putting important new light on the little-known personal history between the two families and contains several important disclosures about their business and political dealings and their impact on our lives today.

I'm also the author and a producer of "MASTERS OF SEX" - the Emmy-winning Showtime drama series based on my biography of Masters and Johnson. (On Amazon, make sure to look for the new book edition featuring actors Michael Sheen and Lizzy Caplan on the cover). WATCH THIS VIDEO to hear about the making of "Masters of Sex" from my biography into the Showtime series. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQy6fyy5LgU

When first published as a hardcover in 2009, "Masters of Sex" was called "eye-opening" and "a bombshell" by the Sunday New York Times Book Review, "well written with good humor" by the NY Times daily reviewer Dwight Garner, "an intelligent and well-conceived biography" by The Washington Post, along with a starred review by Booklist. The Chicago Tribune listed it among the paper's favorite non-fiction books of 2009. [Oprah's "O" magazine even cited it among its top 10 "smart, engaging, occasionally uproarious" books dealing with sex].

"THE KENNEDYS: America's Emerald Kings" (Basic Books, 2003) was featured on ABC's "20/20" program, the CBS Evening News, NBC's "Today" show and in publications around the world. "The Kennedys" was praised as one of the top 10 all-time JFK books by the American Booksellers Association's "Book Sense" program. It was featured prominently as annual holiday choice by USA Today's literary critics. It was also a selection of the Book of the Month Club, the History Book Club, excerpted in Redbook and received "blurb" endorsements from historians James MacGregor Burns, Ronald Steel and Newsweek's Evan Thomas. The unabridged audiotape version of "The Kennedys" also won the Earphone Award from Audiofile magazine. Warners Bros. Home Video produced a DVD documentary from my book with the same name that was sold in 2008 along with Oliver Stone's classic movie feature "JFK".

"DR. SPOCK: An American Life" (Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1998), was selected as one of the top ten non-fiction books of 1998 by The Boston Globe and as a "Notable Book of the Year" by The New York Times. Excerpts appeared in Newsweek, U.S News and World Report and it was condensed as a Readers' Digest book. I also appeared on NBC's "Today" show, C-Span's "BookTV," and served as consultant and on-air commentator for a documentary about Dr. Spock's life, jointly produced by the BBC and A&E's "Biography." A paperback version was published in spring 2003 by Basic Books to mark Dr. Spock's 100th birthday.

"NEWHOUSE: All the Glitter, Power and Glory of America's Richest Media Empire and the Secretive Man Behind It," (St. Martin's Press, 1994) won the Frank Luther Mott Award by the National Honor Society in Journalism and Mass Communication as best media book of the year. Excerpts appeared in the Columbia Journalism Review, Worth, and The London Telegraph magazine. An updated trade paperback of "Newhouse," published by Johnson Books, was picked by Entertainment Weekly as one of the top ten "must reads" for the 1997 summer season.

Since 1984, I've been a writer for Newsday in New York, previously working at the Chicago Sun-Times. In 2002, I won the world's top $20,000 investigative prize from the International Consortium of Investigative Reporting, now called the "Daniel Pearl Award", for a series about the deadly exploitation of immigrant workers. Others investigative series of mine have won the national Sigma Delta Chi Distinguished Service Award (twice, 1987 and 2013), the national Worth Bingham Award, National Headliners Award, New York Deadline Club, Society of Silurians and many others. I earned a master's degree in 1982 from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where I won the John Patterson television documentary prize at graduation and was later awarded a John McCloy fellowship to Europe.