Local Writer Publishes First Novel

New Milford resident and Patch Blogger Bob Nesoff, a former Green Beret and Communications Director for the Bergen County Sheriff's Department, headed to the  on 9/11 because there were rumored threats that the George Washington Bridge was a target for attack. 

He waited until the bridge was cleared for emergency vehicles before heading downtown to Ground Zero.

"When I was finally able to drive over the bridge," Nesoff recalls, "the severity of what had happened that morning hit me as I saw all of the ambulances lined up at the Jacob Javits Center." After a momentary pause, he continued, "I realized that the ambulances were parked because there was no need for them--the dead outnumbered the injured."

The events of 9/11, and much of what transpired after, had a major influence in the writing of Nesoff's first novel, Spyder Hole. Terrorism had been a central theme to the stories he had previously written, but 9/11 brought the musings of his imagination "brutally to life."

Nesoff, who served as a New Milford Councilman for nine years and was a member of the Board of Education, is a career journalist who began as a writer with a small weekly newspaper in Long Island before accepting a job with a magazine firm in Manhattan, where he rose from staff writer to editor in the space of months.

However, New Jersey beckoned. After a series of moves, he and his wife Sandy landed in New Milford where they raised their three daughters. Bob took a job as a reporter for The Record before leaving to write for the Newark News, the biggest daily at the time. It was at the Newark News that Nesoff sharpened his investigative skills as he uncovered government corruption that led to the indictments of several officials. 

When the Newark News folded, Nesoff was appointed chief investigator for the Stein Commission, a series of New York State Senate hearings investigating the management practices of nursing homes and funeral parlors in New York. Nesoff's work helped to expose the federal and state Medicaid fraud practiced by Bernard Bergman in his network of nursing homes. The investigative work of this commission also exposed the dismal conditions rampant in many nursing homes and led to reforms within the industry. 

Nesoff then returned to New Jersey where he was the editor of the Bergen News and publisher of The Palisadian.

Although he always had a story brewing in his head, it wasn't until a friend had successfully published a book that Nesoff was encouraged to sit down and write a novel.

Being used to the noise, madness and camaraderie of a newsroom it was difficult for Nesoff to sit quietly at a desk and write.

"I wasn't used to having absolutely nothing to distract me," he said.

But sit and write he did. The first draft of his novel was titled Ransom for a Dead King, centering around home-grown terrorists blowing up the Statue of Liberty. He ended up scrapping this book and set about writing the espionage thriller Spyder Hole.

Spyder Hole has been described by Thomas Needham, Maj. Gen. (Ret.) U.S. Army as "reminiscent of actual incidents hidden under a cloak of 'eyes only' material." He also said that Nesoff "keeps the pace moving like an Indiana Jones movie."

The novel weaves the events of 9/11 into the plot of terrorists attempting to set off nuclear devices in New York and London. Former Green Beret turned Israeli Mossad officer, Dan Helevi, is determined to prevent them from accomplishing their goals, setting the pace for the action that carries the reader to the end of the book. 

Inspired by the positive reviews, Nesoff is busy at work on the sequel, Shaheed, the first chapter of which is included in Spyder Hole as a teaser.

Spyder Hole can be ordered on-line through Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.