Hello, I am Brian B. Kelly and I want to introduce you to my novels and a little of my history. My novels are about many different subjects, different lengths and different genres written in the first and third person about coming of age, love and violence and the experience of someone who has lived a full life in this world. I hope you will enjoy them.
"The Irish Smuggler is a rare find. Both a literary oeuvre and a gripping page turner. Highly readable in either context."
—Alexander Campion, author of the Capucine Culinary Mysteries
"The Irish Smuggler is a multilayered yarn of intrigue and adventure on a global scale. Stories that emerge from The Troubles tend to be rich in passion and adrenalin. Brian Kelly has invested The Irish Smuggler with a rich count of both."
—Stewart Meyer, author of The Lotus Crew and soon to be published The Heist Broker
"The Irish Smuggler is a great yarn! Well-written, well-researched, highly cinematic—and highly recommended."
—Rory O'Connor, author of Friends, Followers and the Future
"Any Harvard graduate can write a book but only Brian Kelly could have written this thrilling adventure, The Irish Smuggler. It cries out for the big screen or a mini-series for the smaller screens around the world."
—Sergei V. Skvortsov, President of Phoenix Films, the leading prime-time television producer in Russia
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The Irish Smuggler is an adventure story which pits Padraic Egan and three other young IRA volunteers, friends from childhood, against all comers. As they smuggle arms into Ireland and global cannabis crops into the United States, they take on the British Army, Afghan mujahidin, a Colombian drug lord, a seafaring hippy commune, Russian and Chechen gangsters, fierce Khazak bandits, Soviet police and the American DEA—not to mention mother nature. As their adventures are twisted and contorted by continual opposition and obstruction, and they are forced to adapt, the reader will meet Afghan mujahidin as they face a Soviet Army of monumentally superior force in the 1980's.
Though The Irish Smuggler spans a stretch of time from 1975 in Ireland to 1991 in New York, much of the story takes place in the heart of 1990 Afghanistan and across the USSR in its final weeks and days in 1991. Driving Padraic Egan's ambition to survive and win out—even in the throes of despair—is talented Miss USSR contestant, Irina Vyrubova. In addition to this Russian beauty, several daring young American women bring not only added suspense but touching romance and abundant humor to a sometimes raw tale of men risking everything for homeland or glory or riches, and sometimes, all three.
The Irish Smuggler also introduces Joel Barr who is the central character in my up and coming next novel, Commie Spy, the Life and Times of a Soviet Patriot from Brooklyn.
You can read the first chapter of The Irish Smuggler here: Chapter 1
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Our American, A Romance of Moscow
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Our American, A Romance of Moscow, 2017, is the second in a novel trilogy set in Russia, starting with the criminal adventure story, The Irish Smuggler, 2013. Our American was soon followed by Mother Russia, late in 2017. This trilogy, a now comprehensive saga about Russia, is set at the end of the Cold War, the final days of the Soviet Union—then still called the 'evil empire'—and a tentative 'New Russia'. Moscow in 1990 began the second millennium's final decade at a time of America's bleary-eyed focus on Russia, with its blind contempt, misguided altruism and dogged exploitation. In Our American, we see the bizarre economy, the street battles, the hopes and heroism of emerging Russian democracy, its spacebridges and beauty contests—just as the oligarchs and carpetbaggers arrive. Russia at a crossroads. We meet Joel Barr, close friend of Julius Rosenberg, just emerging from a KGB identity. As Our American follows the precarious crime partnership of ex-IRA chieftain Padraic Egan and his American TV business cousin, Bill Egan, it is the story of Bill and heroine Natalya Gorochova, their May-December love and friendship across distance, age, time, culture and language. Bill faces his life's less-and-less carefree choices, but hopes Natalya will reveal her country's secrets and that he can leap-frog dog-eat-dog New York to success in Russia. She is a beautiful nineteen-year-old model and Russian patriot who wants a substantial man in her life and to be in love with what is good. You can read the first chapter of Our American, A Romance of Moscow here: Chapter 1
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Mother Russia
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With the publication of Mother Russia, the Russian saga about Irina, Natalya and the Egans now becomes a comprehensive work about Russia at the crucial and formative end of the Cold War and the final days of the Soviet Union. In Our American, A Romance of Moscow, 2017, we saw the bizarre economy, the street battles, the hopes and heroism of emerging Russian democracy in the early 1990s, its spacebridges and beauty contests—just as the oligarchs and carpetbaggers arrived. This new novel, Mother Russia, continues the story of Russia itself and the precarious crime partnership of The Irish Smuggler, 2013, between ex-IRA agent Padraic Egan and his American TV business cousin, Bill Egan. But Mother Russia is the direct sequel to Our American, thus completing the romance of Bill Egan and heroine Natalya Gorochova, a May-December love and friendship across distance, time, culture and language. As a more reflective story, Mother Russia introduces a time of daring new beginnings and further introduces Joel Barr—the pal and collaborator of Julius Rosenberg—during those final few short years of the second millennium's last decade, a time of America's further bleary-eyed focus on Russia, with its blind and misguided altruism and its attempted exploitation and contempt. With Mother Russia, after all a Russian story, this saga achieves a Russian length. But Russian stories, it has been said, often have unhappy endings. Perhaps the reader has some choice: whether to be happy for the protagonists, happy for the writer in the weaving of his tale, or happy for him or herself, at being amused, entertained, educated, enthralled or enlightened? Or for having escaped a few careworn hours…
All three, including Our American and The Irish Smuggler, are sold world-wide by Amazon with the "Look Inside" feature which allows for preview reading of a number of pages. You can read the first chapter of Mother Russia here: Chapter 1
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Tropic of Paradise
"Brilliantly researched, eloquently written, Tropic of Paradise titillates, entertains, and delivers the goods."
—Nik Douglas, author of Sexual Secrets
"This is about learning life from an experienced innocent in paradise, a story like Adam and Eve but without the snake."
—Dr. Debora Phillips, author of Sexual Confidence
"If Holden Caulfield had gone with Bill Flynn to the Tropic of Paradise, he would have had a much richer life."
—Richard Stratton, author of Smack Goddess, Slam, and Altered States of America
"In his nearly lost youth, Brian Kelly found on Tahiti a people and tradition still unspoiled. Is it any wonder he remembers it so vividly?
—Stewart Meyer, author of The Lotus Crew
"If Henry Miller had gone to Tahiti instead of Paris he would have written Tropic of Paradise instead of Tropic of Cancer. But he didn't so Brian Kelly had to."
—Richard Lourie, author of Sakharov and The Autobiography of Joseph Stalin
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Tropic of Paradise still reflects both Margaret Mead's Coming of Age in Samoa and Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer, but the original highly fictional story based on the author's time in the Tahitian islands in 1962, is now out in a second edition, thanks to its original publisher, John Colby of ibooks, Inc. His team has done a nice job redesigning it and shining it up. The last of the typos are gone and some grammar has been corrected. Some editing has been done here and there and the many one-scene chapters have been combined into longer ones, saving many pages of white space. The author has included a protracted prologue depicting a round-table French class in a New England prep school wherein the instructor introduces his all male students to the natural freedom of lust by describing Tahiti's sexual culture. His description inspires two of them to seek lustful freedom on the fabled island of love.
Have you ever wanted to visit a tropical paradise? Or dreamed of a vacation in Tahiti? Or maybe you've been there and long to go back? Don't miss Tropic of Paradise, a Tahitian Love Story! Steeped in Polynesian culture, this sexual coming-of-age tale reads like a travel book and political thriller. It will take you there…
Tropic of Paradise is honest, sensitive, how-to, sexual truth, like it was in Tahiti in 1962, and always should be, everywhere. Eloquently written, the story builds with the suspense of real life as it titillates, entertains, educates and enthralls. Women will love Tropic of Paradise for its great story, for the fascinating world it describes, and because reading Tropic of Paradise will be like having a young lover all their own. Few men will want to miss this sexually explicit tale about learning life from an experienced innocent in paradise, a story like Adam and Eve but without the snake. An intimate, private South Pacific, with a mildly tongue in cheek echo of Henry Miller, Tropic of Paradise brings readers to an amorous life worth keeping forever.
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Tiare Tahiti at Harvard
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Tiare Tahiti at Harvard means The Red Flower of Tahiti at Harvard College, the story of Bill Flynn hitting Harvard like a ripe papaya smacking into a block wall at 60 mph. It begins where the next paragraph after the last paragraph in Tropic of Paradise should go: Bill Flynn, just off the boat from Tahiti, hits the ground running—straight into proper New England. Guess what, chump, you don't know shit about fuck. But with the charming Rebecca Chadwick, and some of her Radcliffe classmates, Tiare Tahiti at Harvard is a story about much more than what happened to poor old Tiare, aka Bill Flynn. It's meant to be good for a laugh, shorter than Tropic of Paradise. It is the academic year 1962-1963, Bill's freshman year, the time just before the sexual revolution, psychedelic drugs, and the righteous politics of the 1960s.
You can read the first chapter of Tiare Tahiti at Harvard here: Chapter 1
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Just Call Me Whitey
A Novel of White Privilege and Black Lives
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The early 1960s were a time of turmoil, not least for the youth who found themselves in high school or college. Though it was a time of hope, expectation and a yearning for something new, not all the changing times were welcome. Children raised in one society found themselves as adolescents in another. Just Call Me Whitey is set in the now half-forgotten America at the cusp of tectonic national—and generational—changes, when America was only first emerging from its sordid history of bigotry and hate, where a black man could not become President of the United States and was routinely denied even society's most common convenieces such as the use of a lunch counter or a public drinking fountain. Bill Doyle's childhood seems lost to him, only to be found in his disturbing dreams, until he begins to understand the changes that time and the family move from Ohio to Maryland have brought. Time and toil have rendered an earlier version of Bill's story, published in 2010 as Smartass, An Awakening, fuller and more relevant. It is a story of overcoming the hate for the sake of love. You can read the first chapter of Just Call Me Whitey here: Chapter 1
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Communist Number One, Vol I
The LIfe and Times of Joel Barr, Soviet Patriot from Brooklyn, Julius Rosenberg's Best Friend
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Communist Number One, a fictional trilogy, is the true to life story of Joel Barr, son of immigrant parents from Tsarist Russia. Volume One describes Joel's antecedents, his early life and times growing up in the great depression. It is about his friendship with Julius Rosenberg, Morton Sobell and other members of the famous class of 1938 at City College of New York. It describes how, in those times, they came to be members of the Communist Party of the USA. As key engineers of the advanced weapon systems that defeated the Axis powers and how they also spied for their Socialist heroes of the Soviet Union. The story is told by an author who knew Joel Barr intimately during the last decade of his incredibly colorful life. Communist Number One is also a history of America, its yearnings and strife, its proud times and its shameful times during Joel Barr's life and times. You can read the first chapter here: Chapter 1
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Communist Number One, Vol. II
The Life and Times of Joel Barr, Escape to Russia, Leading USSR Scientist
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Communist Number One, Vol. II, is the sequel to Communist Number One, Vol. I. Volume II tells Joel Barr's story as his spying for the Soviet Union is shut down inadvertently by the FBI, he loses his job and is blacklisted in the USA for further work in his scientific field of radio electronics. Volume II then follows Joel from shortly after World War II when, under the sponsorship of the KGB, he undertakes a musical career in Paris, hoping to become a successful symphonic composer. His plans and a developing career in music are disrupted by the arrest of the Rosenbergs, and most notably the arrest of Ethel Rosenberg's brother, David Greenglass. Unlike most of the members of the Rosenberg spy ring, Joel makes a successful escape behind the Iron Curtain. Once there, in Prague, Czech Republic, Joel is given a new identity to shield him from detection and kidnapping by the CIA. He is soon swept into a complex world of Soviet high technology and vicious Soviet politics. Joel's path is never easy and is always fraught with immense challenges and dangers. Though this three volume work is a fictional account, it tells the real life story of one of the 20th Century's most intriguing characters.
The Life and Times of Joel Barr, Escape to Russia, Leading USSR Scientist
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Communist Number One, Volume III, The Life & Times of Joel Barr, Leningrad Music Man begins following the end of Communist Number One, Volume III, The Life & Times of Joel Barr, Leningrad Music Man begins following the end of Communist Number One, Volume II, The Life & Times of Joel Bar, Escape to Russia. Joe Berg, (Joel Barr's KGB name) and Philip Staros (Alfred Sarant's KGB name) have just been disgraced before the highest echelons of the Soviet Navy by bringing fake cognac to their honorary dinner and trying to pass themselves off as loyal drinking companions to those who are honoring them. This is the final blow to their reputations and another victory for their nemesis, Grigorii Romanov, who is soon to became all powerful as a full member of the Soviet Politburo, the :USSR's highest ruling body. Joe and Phil are at a loss as to how to start over. They again seek the help and advice of their KBB handler, and friend, Colonel Viktor Taroikin and his superior officer Anatoly Yatskov. Phil wants desperately to get away from Leningrad and Grigorii Romanov, but Joe wants to stay and continue to struggle in his adopted hometown. As their lives unfold, apart for the first time in more than 20 years, Joe continues his affair with Elvira Valueva, while raising four children with his wife, Vera Bergova. For Joe, it is a lonely time, as the Soviet Union stalls, and begins to crumble. He is sustained by his love of music and a wide circle of musical friends, both young and old, including the bright new lights of Soviet underground Rock and Roll.
Brendan Moran is 39 years old, on his way to being a billionaire. A wildly successful CEO of a toy and gaming juggernaut, he is written up in the financial press almost every week and is married to a trophy wife, Diane Palmer, who is also his business partner and very much a part of his success. The couple are high society's darlings. But, like so many who have it all, Brendan wants more and is apparently willing to risk everything he has to get it. Antonio Mastroiani is a successful third generation restaurant mogul who has teamed up with childhood friend, Jack Riordan, a rising law enforcement officer, in a secret partnership to smuggle cocaine into New York city and environs. As the size of the coke shipments grow, so do the tensions between them. Petite and stunningly beautiful Olivia Santangelo is a fashion designer whose career is blossoming in both high fashion and home interior design. Her uncle Renny insists she have a concealed carry permit for a .32 Beretta automatic pistol after she is nearly raped. Two's Company is about the interaction of these characters and several others besides. Set in New York City and Long Island, this fast moving story of human Eros and error, foibles and faults, lives up to its subtitle: A Comedy of Sex, Love, Crime and Treachery.
As of January 1, 2022, Brian B. Kelly has published nine novels and two major second editions:
Tropic of Paradise, a Tahitian Love Story Brick Tower Press February, 2011
SmartAss, an Awakening Brick Tower Press January, 2012
The Irish Smuggler Brick Tower Press October, 2013
Just Call Me Whitey (second ed. of Smartass) Brick Tower Press October, 2016
Our American, A Romance of Moscow Brick Hill Roads, April, 2017
Mother Russia Brick Hill Roads, Ltd December, 2017
Tiare Tahiti at Harvard (sequel to Tropic of Paradise) Brick Hill Roads, January, 2019
Tropic of Paradise, Second Edition iBooks, May, 2019
Two's Company… A Comedy of Sex, Love, Crime & Treachery Brick Hill Roads, August, 2020
Communist Number One, Life and Times of Joel Barr…Vol I Brick Hill Roads, February, 2021
Communist Number One, Life and Times of Joel Barr…Vol II Brick Hill Roads, August, 2021
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Brian B. Kelly's first years were spent in Ohio farm country, but by the age of twelve he settled in suburban Maryland and attended public school there. Kelly joined the civil rights movement on the Hiser theater picket line in Bethesda, Maryland, in the spring 1960. That September, he entered Phillips Exeter Academy to graduate in 1962. He began studying at Harvard College that fall. During summers and in time off from college, Kelly worked as a laborer on Boston high-rise construction projects as a member of South Boston's local 223 of the Hod Carriers and Common Laborers Union of North America. In December of 1963, he signed a refusal to fight in Vietnam, and became increasingly active against the war.
Kelly graduated from Harvard with honors in English in 1967 and began writing for the Boston Avatar then co-founded the Boston Free Press in 1968. Late in 1970, he co-founded and soon became president of The Corners of the Mouth, Inc. which opened the first organic restaurant in Cambridge, Massachusetts and subsequently the first organic bakery and the first organic food store there. In December 1972, Kelly was granted US utility patent #3,705,556 for one of his unique furniture assembly designs.
In February 1975, Kelly moved to New York City to take a job with Time-Life's hotel cable TV division where he soon became Director of Operations. He stayed with the company which became Spectradyne, Inc until 1976. Kelly founded National Video Industries, Inc. late in 1976 and NVI became the leading independent teleproduction facility in Manhattan during the 1980's and early 1990's, producing progressive video and television projects while doing commercial work for such clients as The Miss America Pageant and Pepsi Cola.
In 1990, Kelly made his first trip to Russia and quickly became a consultant in the formation of Russia's second major television network, Channel Russia, working with the Russian Radio and Television Company under the leadership of Boris Yeltsin. In 1991, Kelly co-founded Video International in Moscow which is today one of the most successful media companies in the Russian Federation. Working in television in Moscow in the 1990's, Kelly was involved in producing Russian beauty pageants and popular Russian TV shows including Stars of America, Stars of World Screen and Vladimir Posner's America. In 1993, he co-founded International Broadcasting and Communications, Inc., a consulting firm employed by both former Soviet companies making the transition to capitalism and by American firms such as Hughes Corporation interested in doing business in Russia.
Kelly has been familiar with Russia for over five decades through friends, family and business. Though maintaining a Moscow residence since the early 1990s, he spends most of his time in Bushwick, Brooklyn, working on new writing and video projects. Currently, he is working on Volume III of Communist Number One, The Life and Times of Joel Barr and a possible sequel to Two's Company...A Comedy of Sex, Love, Crime and Treachery, tentatively entitled, Three's More Company, A Catalogue of the American Ponzi Culture