you're' the star and the next night you're backing things up," he said. "I wanted to write a series that basically allowed my characters to have their own book, their story."

To that end, the series was originally concieved as a trilogy. But he thought Liam was just too interesting to leave alone. And when The African was introduced in the second book, he fell in love with that character. "He's my Luca Brazi," La Salle said, referring to Vito Corleone's favorite hired gun in "The Godfather."

Both books were self-published, which La Salle says has limited the number of reviews he has received. However, he got a boost with his first book by getting a respectful critique by the well-read Kirkus Reviews: "A delightfully twisting roller-coaster ride through light,dark and the shades between." He got an even bigger boost with his second book, a rave book-cover blurb by suspense-thriller king James Patterson: "all thriller, no filler, a white-knuckled treat."

La Salle isn't stopping with crime fiction. He's also working on "Mama's Boys," a semi-autobiographical story about a woman raising her sons in Hartford.

"The book is already complete," he said. "I'm just editing and trying to decide when it should be released so as not to confuse the readers of the 'Laws' series.''

"LAWS OF DEPRAVITY'' and "LAWS OF WRATH'' can be bought on amazon.com.