Author R&R with Dan Buzzetta

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Dan Buzzetta is a successful attorney and partner in the New York City office of a large national law firm. He is also an aficionado of the history of the mafia in the United States and Italy, where his parents were born. His legal thriller series is inspired, in part, by a fascination with all things mafia and an actual case where he worked closely with the Department of Justice and FBI. After several years, Dan's team succeeded in recovering over $240 million on behalf of thousands of innocent investors swindled by foreign nationals. In 2024, Dan was elected to the governing body of his hometown in New Jersey for a three-year term. Dan is also a volunteer firefighter, and in his spare time enjoys traveling and skiing with his wife and three children.  

His debut novel, The Manipulator,  follows Thomas Berte, a Harvard-educated attorney at the peak of his career with a corporate law firm, who's thrust into the legal battle of a lifetime when he's offered the position of Deputy Attorney General. Tasked with the daunting mission of bringing to justice Cosimo "Nino" Benedetto, the elusive mastermind of an international criminal syndicate, Tom soon realizes that the immense pressure of the job is only one challenge of the enviable position.

Dogged by Special Agent Bruce Young, an insolent, insubordinate underling intent on making Tom's dream job a nightmare, Tom is determined to complete the task before him. But when he uncovers troubling connections between his former law firm and the underworld empire he's determined to dismantle, Tom's world is upended. Even more disturbing, Tom discovers unimaginable secrets about his own family. The chase for Benedetto becomes a personal crusade and a pivotal moment of reckoning, pitting the pursuit of justice against unspeakable threats that come from exposing long-buried secrets. For Tom Berte, discovering the truth could be as devastating as failing to succeed.

Dan stops by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R about writing the novel:

When I read a description for this blog post, I felt a bit uneasy. I was asked to share details about the research I did for my debut novel, The Manipulator, published by Severn River Publishing. I wish I could describe late nights spent in dusty libraries in far away places, the way one could imagine Dan Brown toiling away the hours while he researched the meaning behind mystical symbols for one of his many fast-paced thrillers. Or perhaps I would be expected to recount countless hours interviewing lawyers and gangsters trying to divine realistic plot points for my legal thriller centered around the pursuit of the mastermind of an international criminal syndicate who takes an unusual personal interest in the life of his pursuer.   

The fact is, the story I wrote marries two subjects I already knew a little about: the law and the mob. As a result, it didn't require much research at all beyond my own life experiences. You see, I've been practicing law for over thirty years as a commercial litigator in various big New York City law firms. A large chunk of my practice has been devoted to uncovering financial frauds, tracing secreted assets, and using tools the law provides to recover monies hidden in traditional offshore tax and money laundering havens such as the Isle of Man, Cyprus, and Switzerland, to mention just a few. Cases I've worked on have necessitated cooperating with colorful characters who were once on the wrong side of the law but have since proclaimed to be "reformed criminals" who've turned over a new leaf.

I've also had the privilege of working with courageous men and women in law enforcement whose north star is to always follow the rule of law without fear or favor. Those cases often included scintillating facts, huge sums of money, sexy foreign locations, and, more often than not, exotic cars and big, expensive boats. Given this abundance of rich material, a thriller script practically writes itself with archetypal heroes, reluctant and otherwise, villains and crooks, skilled operatives, and by-the-book bureaucrats who usually make life more difficult for the honest cops than for the rogue and corrupt insiders. 

The Manipulator contains aspects of real life cases I've worked on during my career which formed the backdrop for some of the legal wranglings and maneuverings taking place in the story.  Likewise, aspects of The Manipulator pertaining to organized crime also reflect my life experiences but, thankfully, not from any first-hand knowledge. Rather, they reflect a passion I developed from a relatively young age as a result of being surrounded, literally, by the mystique of organized crime.

I often tell people I met my first real-life mobster when I was around twelve - years before I met a real-life lawyer. I grew up in the Todt Hill section of Staten Island. Notorious neighbors  included a who's-who of real life mafiosi, including none other than Paul Castellano, then head of the Gambino crime family, perhaps the largest, richest and most feared crime family in the United States. I actually met Paul Castellano when I was around twelve when I was friends with his grandsons who lived a few houses away from me. Even at that young age, I knew who Paul Castellano was and knew about the mafia. It was hard not to.

I grew up in an Italian family in the 1980s and 1990s in New York City when stories about the mob were often front page tabloid news. Add to that that my parents immigrated to the United States from Italy, with my father having been born in a small town outside of Palermo, Sicily. After a few years in the United States, he started his own construction company. You can imagine the rumors that swirled around my private elementary school also on Todt Hill when I moved there from Brooklyn, NY, at the age of 9. The fact that my given name is 'Danilo' did nothing to swell the rumors that my family, too, must be connected to "that life."

Dispelling those rumors became a quest for me, which I did by focusing on my studies and outworking everyone else in my class. But it also sparked an interest and curiosity to learn about the origins and history of the mafia both in the United States and in my father's native land. I read everything I could get my hands on concerning the mafia and developed a fascination with its traditions, its lore, and the impact it had on our society and in the communities it penetrated. I tried to weave some of that history into the narrative of The Manipulator without writing a history lesson. I'll leave it to others to decide if I succeeded.

A few years ago, immediately after I finished writing the manuscript that became The Manipulator, I spent three months training to become a volunteer firefighter. An early lesson I learned is that you don't need to put your hand in a fire to know it burns - you know what you know. I sort of felt the same way when I sat down to write my novel. I knew what I knew about the law and the mob and didn't feel I needed any more research. I just needed to figure out how to write about it.    

   

You can learn more about Dan Buzzetta via his website and follow him on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and BlueSky.  The Manipulator is now available via Severn House and all major booksellers.