Having spent his entire life as an active part of New York's organized crime, Girard was characterized by the New York Post as "...a middle echelon member" of one of New York's five mob families. After a number of arrests he was eventually sentenced to three years in NY State prison as a result of being targeted by New York's Organized Crime Control Bureau and was later convicted of racketeering, under the RICO statute, by Rudolph Giuliani's office, and sentenced to seven years in federal prison. During that last term Girard became interested in writing. Along with another inmate who had sold a manuscript to a major publisher, Girard helped form a fiction writers' workshop. It was during that time that he completed his first novel, BLOOD OF OUR FATHERS, first published by Pocket/Simon & Schuster. He has gone on to publish a number of mob related books and can be contacted through his website: www.SonnysMobCafe.com