About Me

I was born in Paterson, New Jersey to a family of Russian Jewish artists originally from Odessa. In 1973 my father took the unusual step of moving my family down to St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, where I spent my formative years. It is impossible to overestimate the influence the culture, history, geography, and the people of the West Indies had on my psyche.


Charlotte Amalie harbor, 1984


14th Birthday, December 1978

My writing journey began in 2008 when I started working on Transfer Day, a historical thriller set during the transfer of the Danish West Indies to the United States in 1917. The book was inspired by my years growing up in St. Thomas, and draws upon personal experience. It was released in 2012 to glowing reviews by Publishers Weekly, who called it a "page-turner with emotional resonance." You can read more about Transfer Day here.

I then turned my sights to a subject that had always fascinated me since childhood: Tibet. While writing Race to Tibet, (2015) a novel based on the true story of a team of French explorers led by Gabriel Bonvalot, a world-class explorer, Prince Henri d'Orleans, and a Belgian missionary named Father Constant de Deken, I delved into the study of the Great Game, Central Asian history and geography, Tibetan history and geography, and the many explorers who tried to breach the walls of the Forbidden Kingdom. In doing so, I unlocked a lifelong fascination I'd always had with this mystical Buddhist kingdom on the Roof of the World. Race to Tibet was released to wonderful reviews from Publishers Weekly and Kirkus. You can hear more about Race to Tibet here.

My next project, Island on Fire, (2018) is a novel about the 1902 eruption of Mount Pelée in Martinique that caused the deaths of 30,000 people. For this historical thriller, I incorporated elements of voodoo and sorcery, cultural aspects which are still potent forces in the French West Indies. The book was described as "a memorable romantic thriller" by Publishers Weekly. You can hear more about Island on Fire here.


In the ruins of St. Pierre.


Visiting a real-life sugar plantation in 2015, Habitation Clement.

In 2019 I released a collection of poetry inspired by the Caribbean called, On a Moonlit Night in the Antilles. These are poems I had been working on since 2011, whenever inspiration would strike. In the collection, you will find poems about the flora and fauna, and many historical figures and important events that occurred in the Danish West Indies, including the 1733 St. John uprising and the sinking of the Danish slave ship, Fredensborg. There is also a special poem dedicated to Alexander Hamilton, who grew up in Christiansted and spent his formative years working in a counting house.



My next novel, The Lost Diary of Alexander Hamilton (2020), tells the story of Hamilton's tumultuous youth in the Caribbean. It has been called an "engaging coming-of-age story of heartbreak, bravery, honor, and courage" by Kirkus Reviews. The novel traces his hardscrabble childhood in St. Eustatius and St. Croix, his growth into self-sufficiency and singular genius, and his strength of character in a tale set against the early years of the American Revolution, when tensions were rising in Britain's Caribbean colonies. You can hear more about it here.


Exploring Fort Christiansvaern, St. Croix, 2019

My latest novel, The Unlikely Spy, (2022) is the story of a young widow who is asked by American agents to gather intelligence on a ring of German saboteurs, and finds herself at the center of a plot to bomb the Panama Canal--and the man who is supposed to protect her disappears without a trace.