Thomas Joseph "T.J." English comes from a large Irish Catholic family of ten brothers and sisters.  Early in his writing career, English worked as a freelance journalist in New York City during the day and drove a taxi at night.  He often refers to cab driving as a metaphor for what he does as a writer – cruising the streets, interviewing strangers, exploring the unknown, reporting on what he sees and hears from his sojourns in and around the underworld.

In 1990, English published his first book, The Westies, an account of the last of the Irish Mob in the infamous Manhattan neighborhood known as "Hell’s Kitchen." The book was the result of a series of reports English wrote for a weekly Irish American newspaper based in New York...