When Evan O’Brien reluctantly returns home for his grandfather’s funeral, his life littered with failed jobs and relationships, he agrees to work on his beloved uncle’s failing mayoral campaign, but has no idea of the dirty politics and family secrets he is about to encounter. Caught between a buried past and a dangerous present, Philadelphia provides the colorful landscape of violence, racism, and the challenges Evan must face to reclaim his life, before someone takes it.
“A dark, jagged, and compulsively readable story that digs deep into grief, politics, and betrayal.”
Screenshot of the article as published online by The Philadelphia Inquirer.
A standalone novel
Funeral of Lies
Separate from the Love and Murder trilogy.
When Evan O’Brien reluctantly returns home for his grandfather’s funeral, his life littered with failed jobs and relationships, he agrees to work on his beloved uncle’s failing mayoral campaign, but has no idea of the dirty politics and family secrets he is about to encounter. Caught between a buried past and a dangerous present, Philadelphia provides the colorful landscape of violence, racism, and the challenges Evan must face to reclaim his life, before someone takes it.
In O’Neill’s novel, a public-relations executive becomes entangled in his uncle’s political campaign and confronts a fraught family history. Evan O’Brien, a jaded PR professional based in New York City, returns home to Philadelphia for his grandfather’s funeral only to be pulled into his Uncle Michael’s unexpected run for mayor. What begins as a reluctant favor becomes a consuming test of loyalty, ambition, and self-preservation. Michael, who’s compassionate to a fault, believes that he can restore dignity to a city plagued by violence, while Evan, who’s both protective and opportunistic, sees politics as nothing more than theater, in which one survives through manipulation. The secondary cast is also sharply drawn, including Betty, Evan’s embittered mother who blames her son for past tragedies; Jane, Evan’s aunt, who resents his closeness with her husband; Father Murphy, a wily family confidant; and Ellen Van De Meer, the head of the local Republican Party and the ruthless keeper of the city’s political machine. They illustrate how family and politics thrive on secrecy and control, and the campaign itself becomes a crucible. Unresolved betrayals from Evan’s past resurface, involving a violent childhood incident with his stepfather and his grandfather’s favoritism: “My grandfather had picked his real favorite,” notes Evan at one point. “And it wasn’t me.”
Tension builds throughout the story by pairing psychological unease with the grind of local politics, and it shows how grief, racism, and ambition collide in a troubled city. Although O’Neill sometimes lingers a bit longer than necessary on backstory, the narrative’s psychological edge is engagingly sharp, as is Evan’s corrosive narration. A dark, jagged, and compulsively readable story that digs deep into grief, politics, and betrayal.
“There is clearly a strong story here, and an intriguing plot at the heart of this novel, with surprises and clever insights. For readers who enjoy taking their time with a narrative, Funeral of Lies will have appeal, offering a well-constructed payoff and genuine surprises.”
What does a romance-thriller look like in the Pandemic era? Welcome to a very possible near future where crime, murder, and love seem familiar but are reshaped by the dark presence of the ongoing Pandemic.
It is this dystopian 2020s. Alby O’Brien is hiding in southern New Jersey to avoid the wrath of terrorists who are after him. Believing he is safely hidden in his cave-like garage apartment, he supports himself on under-the-table fix-it work while wrestling with nightmares of what happened in Iraq. But his minimal existence is about to end with very dire consequences.
Within the first twenty-four hours of this one-week, fast-paced thriller, he is involved in a major robbery, meets a woman named Ginger with a mysterious past, and crosses paths with a psychotically polite killer called Jagger. Something very valuable has been taken from a mob-run bank and now everyone is after Alby. Despite his life being on the line, all he can think about is the alluring and volatile Ginger. As it all comes to a head, Alby knows his choices are few and his fate could go either way.
This novel is based on a true story. Told to the author by his father, it is the true story of a mob bank getting ripped off and the ensuing violent consequences.
“A rousing crime tale with an indelible cast and a sharp, edgy environment.”
Publisher: AESON Publications. Details as listed on Amazon in October 2026.
Book 2 of the trilogy
Even Climate Change Can’t Stop Love and Murder
Vol. 2: Paying the Price
Will Ginger and Alby survive their new home in the West? At times, it seems doubtful they will make it to Sedona, Arizona. Even worse, they have no idea of the danger that waits for them there.
As they cross the United States to relocate to their new witness protection home in Arizona, Ginger and Alby’s search for love is marred by violent interludes with insurrectionists, white supremacists, and jihadists. Yet the worse threat of all is the fury of climate chaos: storms beyond measure, a bitter fact of life in 2026. And as our characters soon discover, even more, these storms' death and destruction are insidiously random, and for them, become very personal.
Even Climate Change Can't Stop Love and Murder, Volume 2: Paying the Price is the second novel of this romance thriller series and offers a uniquely American vision of love and murder, trauma and healing. Traveling with Alby, Ginger shares her life with him, but not the dark secrets of her childhood which explain so much of her strong, determined character. All the threads of the old life and new culminate at Tuzigoot National Monument, where Ginger and Alby face certain death, and someone pays the price.
“The book's setting in the period of the climate crisis gives this exciting tale a new level of suspense. I suggest this book to people who like slow-burning thrillers with a touch of romance, contemporary world issues, and American politics.”
Publisher: AESON Publications. Details as listed on Amazon in October 2026.
Book 3 of the trilogy
Nothing Can Stop Love and Murder
Volume 3, Blown Away
An unstoppable woman who thinks she’s secretly Ginger Rogers; a loving husband who can’t live without her…but murder has its own plans.
Nothing Can Stop Love and Murder is a romantic thriller about trust under pressure. The novel explores grief, survival, political manipulation, climate anxiety, and the terrifying power of wealth and technology. Yet beneath the suspense and danger is a deeply human love story about two damaged people who have survived a mob hitman, Jihadists, secessionists and climate destruction, trying to hold onto each other while the world around them spirals toward chaos.
In the third volume of this romantic thriller Love and Murder series, Ginger and Alby desperately try to keep their relationship alive while being pulled into a world collapsing in fear, corruption, and death. Set in Sedona, the novel follows the two as they become entangled in a deadly conspiracy anchored in climate politics and masterminded by mysterious and powerful outsiders determined to control the future.
After a disastrous climate event that shattered Sedona, Ginger, owner of a dance studio and a survivor of past traumas, had reinvented herself as a passionate city council member dedicated to developing climate-safe housing for Sedona’s residents. Ginger is intelligent and fiercely independent, with an easy charm and an often-sarcastic temper. With a that Western deep distrust of the Federal government, once government funding steps in, public opinion of her goals begins to shift, at great cost to her dance school attendance and her patience with the relationship that she and Alby had been building.
Alby, her loyal but also troubled partner, is emotionally haunted. He possesses an unusual sensitivity to danger: an inner warning system that he cannot fully explain but has learned not to ignore. Ginger both fears and hates it and urges him to purge himself of it. Alby knows better, as Vance, a good friend who is wrapped in mystery, begins to teach him about his ability to predict the near future.
As Ginger’s young students are pulled out of her classes under negative parental responses to her political presence, violence appears elsewhere, beginning with the suspicious death of Old Joe, their wealthy, father-figure friend who gave them their beloved home, the Saloon. Though authorities label Old Joe’s death a heart attack, Alby’s intuitive voice immediately identifies it as murder. And the deaths don’t stop there.
Given the murder threats surrounding Ginger’s climate initiative, an FBI agent, Castor, arrives to protect her. When another climate chaos event occurs, it is used to cover a terrorist attempt on Ginger’s life. At the moment of greatest threat, she mistakes Castor for a long-ago lover, beginning a journey into her past that is a corrosive shock to Alby and their relationship.
Among the characters disrupting their lives are LALA, a manipulative celebrity influencer with her own agenda, Billy, her enthusiastic, seemingly naïve husband who runs the climate construction company at the core of the story, and DB, a picture-perfect, reclusive billionaire whose reach extends into politics, surveillance, and murder.
As the couple becomes the target of intimidation, betrayal, and escalating attacks, friends become suspects and allies disappear. Every revelation pushes Ginger and Alby deeper into a maze that threatens to make their flee for their lives, but Ginger is determined that is not going to happen.
Publisher: AESON Publications. Details as listed on Amazon in October 2026.
Alfred O’Neill, who publishes as A.E.S. O’Neill
About Alfred
Alfred O’Neill
Framing my life and writing is the fact that my father was a con man and mob money launderer who used his wages to pay for my very upright Quaker education, which emphasized a principled life. My natural tendency to embrace contradictions starts there and falls across all my writing.
Life was filled with wiretaps, FBI agents, and, finally, my father’s fall from grace and his federal trial. Moral ambiguity and redemption are very personal themes.
After several decades of a highly successful New York marketing career, film school, professional writing, public speaking, and travel blogging experience, throw in a big Irish-American family, stories were a big part of my life.
But it took the tragedy of losing my wife to cancer, and finding the true homage to their love living inside Ginger, to push me to finally embrace my lifelong dream to write novels.
Credit to the kind souls around me, and the beauty and kindness of my second country, Ireland (dual-citizen) in helping me heal.
I may write thrillers and mysteries…but just to be clear: Love wins.
“There is clearly a strong story here, and an intriguing plot at the heart of this novel, with surprises and clever insights. For readers who enjoy taking their time with a narrative, Funeral of Lies will have appeal, offering a well-constructed payoff and genuine surprises.”
…O’Neill’s novel is an intriguing crime story packed with shady characters, double-dealing, and violence. It’s also a romantic drama about a man struggling to adjust to civilian life, PTSD, and the possibility of true love. While these conflicting narrative strands seem incompatible, O’Neill confidently weaves them into a complementary whole.
Alby and Ginger’s romance is brimming with witty dialogue, comedic interludes, and conflict. As readers worry about their wellbeing, the dramatic tension becomes impactful…Alby is a believable, psychologically troubled hero, struggling to adjust to the 'small life' prescribed to him. And Ginger provides the perfect antidote to Alby’s moodiness. A decent gallery of supporting characters helps round out the narrative. However, Alby and Ginger are the novel’s driving force, and thankfully for thriller fans, they are well worth spending time with.
ExcerptBlueInk Review
…This was a truly gripping narrative. When I first read the prologue, I saw a story already, but pulling readers from an already difficult situation with historical accuracy that made me question which parts were real and which parts were fictionalized into a narrative that follows a small life turned large by this huge thriller of a case.
The details, down to what each character was feeling at any given moment to, were superb in this novel. I appreciated the nuances in characters’ clothing, the backdrop that situations would occur in, and the little easter eggs that kept me interested in how this mob bank operated. I also appreciated the voice of each character, especially Alby and Ginger. There was a lot of narration of actions that made it easy to distinguish between who was talking or acting, even if there was dialogue tag or a stray pronoun. These distinct voices and actions in the characters also allowed for a great deal of character development, namely on Alby’s part, because of how consistent the core values and traits of these characters were.
ExcerptWriter’s DigestJudge, 32nd Annual Writer’s Digest Self-Published Book Awards
“The book's setting in the period of the climate crisis gives this exciting tale a new level of suspense. I suggest this book to people who like slow-burning thrillers with a touch of romance, contemporary world issues, and American politics.”
Pacific Book ReviewManik Chaturmutha
“Weaving such a human and real love story into a thriller was a perfect way to hook the audience...Highly recommended.”
ExcerptThe Table ReadJJ Barnes, Editor at The Table Read
“The audience is captivated by both love and murder in real-to-life situations...”
ExcerptNational Association of Independent Writers & EditorsApril Michelle Davis, Executive Director
O'Neill blends romance, political conspiracy, climate catastrophe, speculative technology, and psychological suspense into an ambitious thriller with genuine emotional stakes. The relationship between Ginger and Alby anchors the narrative as they navigate assassination attempts, mysterious voices, shadowy investors, government corruption, and increasingly dangerous schemes surrounding Sedona's reconstruction. Individual scenes are engaging, but the abundance of intersecting plots and thematic detours diffuse the suspense.
Prose
The prose is descriptive and often reflective, balancing moments of action with quieter examinations of grief, love, and resilience. O'Neill has an eye for setting, bringing both Sedona's desert landscape and Brooklyn's crowded streets to life with vivid sensory detail. Dialogue feels natural and reveals personality, especially in the exchanges between Ginger and Alby, whose humor and affection provide welcome relief from the surrounding tension.
Originality
O'Neill explores how fear, environmental crises, and political ambition can become tools of manipulation while keeping the emotional core focused on two people trying to preserve their relationship. Although the conspiracy itself follows familiar genre patterns, the novel distinguishes itself through its unusual blend of romance, civic politics, environmental themes, and near-future speculation.
Character/Execution
Ginger is an engaging, resilient protagonist whose optimism survives repeated trauma without feeling naïve, while Alby's quiet compassion and psychological struggles give the story much of its emotional depth. Their relationship develops with warmth and believable conflict, making the romance feel integral to the novel. Secondary characters such as Bea, Officer Bunt, Old Joe, and the enigmatic LALA are equally memorable, each contributing distinct personalities and motivations that enrich the larger story.
Reader reviews
What Readers Are Saying
A selection of written customer reviews from the books’ Amazon listings.
Funeral of Lies could only have been written by someone who both loves and loathes his city. A.E.S. O'Neill weaves a tale of power and politics through his intimate portrayal of neighborhoods and the people whose secrets and tragedys are slowly revealed . I read this book in one sitting, held in the unfolding of the intertwined ,beautifully drawn cast of characters , skillfully drawn sense of place , the play of good and evil, honesty and lies.
I assumed it would be about corruption, it is politics, but the storyline had more twists and intrigue than expected. Loved walking through Philadelphia with Evan and O’Neil for a story that kept you spellbound through Election Night.
This book was a great page-turner. Lots of interesting, complex characters and a compelling story. Even though I'm from North Jersey and not South Jersey (where this book is centered) it was fun to read about the local references to the state. I'm looking forward to reading the second installment in this series. Worth the read!
A close friend from Philly put me on to this amazing mystery which moves like a speeding freight train rumbling down the side of a mountain. The story put me under its spell from the opening pages and never let go. With crisp dialogue, vivid descriptions, and a plot that unfolds under the unforgiving weight of the current pandemic, O'Neill masterfully allows the building suspense to take the reader into the minds and motives of the characters whose lives collide in the shabby shadows of South Jersey. As a reader whose tastes run to historical nonfiction, essays, and biographies, I rarely delve into mysteries. I'm glad that the tip from my hometown friend prompted me to dive into this engaging page-turner. I highly recommend it!
It's the perfect sequel to Even A Pandemic Can't Stop Love And Murder. It picks up where the previous book leaves off and doesn't slow down for one second. The love story is captivating, while the suspense builds to a climax that literally had me sweating. All of this against a backdrop of destructive climate change, which is its own menacing character. Speaking of menacing characters, the main antagonist from the first novel, Jagger, is back and more evil than ever. Read it!
Great setting, imaginative storyline, well developed characters, surprising ending
I don't typically read romantic thrillers but O'Neill draws the reader in with a great opening hook, wonderful setting in Sedona, and a clever, well imagined and well researched storyline. What I found most intriguing (being a romanticist at heart) was the relationship between the fiesty Ginger and her partner Alby, a man reluctant to own his abilities. Loved the ending and look forward to seeing more of Ginger and Alby's story!
Press
Interviews & Media
Interview
Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), Self-Publishing Advice
Inspirational Indie Author Interview: Alfred O’Neill. Mobster’s Son Turns Contradictions Into Thrilling Reads of ‘Love and Murder’
