Novels & Novellas

Once, I had asked,“Why? Does it matter? No one seems to care. People apparently want to be lied to. That’s what politics is. That’s why they go to the movies, isn’t it?”

Otto was firm in his answer. “Truth matters. You have to look for it. What our children know is our only legacy. That’s why I make my movies.”

An opinionated and iconoclastic bookseller, who has managed to live his life on his own terms for forty years while writing books about the things he values most and conducting a sui generis repository of what might be the best of literature, must come to terms at last with an America that has replaced the first amendment with political correctness.
The true story of William McGuire, an innocent in an age of cynicism, and a stranger in a strange land, who must find his own way in Homo sapiens society, as told by himself.

Presented with four other unexpected tales: That Little Old Lady and MeSeely’s SurfsideShe Knows Her Onions, and If Blood Were Orange.

In his study of the past, John Finn can glimpse whole lives and imagine how they were lived. There he can even imagine his own life complete. Now, he has stumbled on love again, only to lose it. What is he actually good for? Perhaps only to find out what happened to a girl who was lost two hundred years ago—and to avoid getting shot in the meantime.
In the year 2162, an aging paladin in the dwindling Order of Pelagius must confront a greater power working to dominate the nations of Earth and the independent states of the heliosphere. John Holt attempts to keep his honor and fulfill his duty using railguns, railroads, dirigibles, steam trucks, river barges, and the help of a horse named Rosie.
1937. New York Daily Mirror photographer Hugh McNeill follows crusading reporter Cass Green as she investigates a possible serial killer: a prostitute doing away with her clients one by one. Cass’s investigation results in the attention of a rogue mobster who’s been moving in on Lucky Luciano’s prostitution rackets and is now trying to kill her.
In his second bibliomystery, Boston bookhound Henry Sullivan has a new girlfriend, a new apartment, and a shelfload of troubles.
Chaucer said “It is nought good a slepyng hound to wake.” Henry Sullivan, bookhound, is ready to be that sleeping dog: to settle down in his new apartment and enjoy life with his new girlfriend.

A bookhound, Henry Sullivan buys and sells books he finds at estate auctions and library sales around Boston and often from the relatives of the recently deceased. He’s in his late thirties, single, and comfortably set in his ways. But when a woman from his past, Morgan Johnson, calls to ask him to look at her late husband’s books, he is drawn into the dark machinations of a family whose mixed loyalties and secret history will have fatal results.

Blog Posts

The Invention of Man: a novel

[ Sequel to A Republic of Books] In love, but broke, the sixty-eight-year-old bookseller, Michael McGeraughty, has converted a fifty-year-old camper-trailer to a small bookshop of about 1500 volumes, to be pulled by his thirty-year-old pick-up truck. His idea is to be...

An annotated browser

  In ancient times, using a pen name, I wrote a series of short-short stories for use as one-page advertisements, under the heading ‘An annotated browser,’ to promote the shop. These are a few examples.   Counterpane          It is an established fact in the...

Biedermeier lives!

Biedermeier: his identity, both mistaken and true is now available in paperback and Kindle from the great and powerful Amazon. From the back cover: Otto Biedermeier, the Hollywood icon and B-movie legend, was murdered by his wife, Mysterious Circumstances. Tom Lenz, a...

‘The Decision’

I don’t know many libertarians. There aren’t a lot to know out here in the boondocks. Mostly it’s the same mix of people I knew in Boston, just fewer of them. And even the few libertarians I am aware of locally are not given to too much conversation. They are well...

About William McGuire and other unexpected stories

The original plan, as plans often do, went awry. Two of the stories I had hoped to include with the print edition of the novella, I Am William McGuire, did not work out as hoped. Most of the shorter material I write is intended as backgound or continuity for...

About Resolution 451

A dialog. “What’s this?” “What?” “This ‘Resolution 451’ business.” “Not a business. Just a revolution. Like a New Year’s revolution.” “You mean resolution.” “Well, yes, but it’s a revolting matter to have to deal with after all the ages..” “How so? What’s the matter?”...

Praise for Vincent McCaffrey’s Writing

“McCaffrey is never cloying or playing to demographic. He’s just telling a compelling, old-school yarn, the kind of story a man who knows his literature tells.”

Time Out Chicago

“Vincent McCaffrey is obviously a man so well read that he seems to have gleaned a deep understanding of human nature from his studies. His characters are appealing and sympathetic and his story well plotted. I look forward to his next novel after what was a most enjoyable debut.”

Gumshoe Review

“McCaffrey has a gift for crafting quirky characters and original dialogue…”

Anne Fortier

Author of "Juliet"

Recent Essays

An annotated browser

  In ancient times, using a pen name, I wrote a series of short-short stories for use as one-page advertisements, under the heading ‘An annotated browser,’ to promote the shop. These are a few examples.   Counterpane          It is an established fact in the...

About Resolution 451

A dialog. “What’s this?” “What?” “This ‘Resolution 451’ business.” “Not a business. Just a revolution. Like a New Year’s revolution.” “You mean resolution.” “Well, yes, but it’s a revolting matter to have to deal with after all the ages..” “How so? What’s the matter?”...