Learn About Township Residents in Book Display

Residents can visit the township library through the end of June to see the written work of their neighbors and some works about fellow residents.

Janet Baker, the head of circulation at the , created a display of stories by war veterans, former detectives and other local authors this month. It includes both novels by authors from the township and books featuring residents. The showcase includes bios on the authors and copies of their books.

Popular author of the new series The Wedding Cake Mysteries, Mary Higgins Clark will also place her books on display this month, along with another book about the history of Washington Township written by a committee a few years ago, according to Baker.

“We just thought people don’t know what their neighbors have written and these are all interesting books,” Baker said. “So many people have commented and are taking pride in what their neighbors have written.”

Non-fiction author Miriam Moscowitz has her book Phantom Spies, Phantom Justice in the showcase.

Moscowitz was involved in the Rosenberg trial and was sent to jail for what they claim her part in the activity was, Baker said.

“It’s about my experience during the McCarthy period when I was wrongfully convicted of conspiracy to obstruct justice in a case that had overtones of Soviet espionage,” Moscowitz explained.

She wrote the book on and off for about 10 years following the trial. It was published about a year and a half ago, selling copies on Amazon and through other outlets.

Moscowitz said she wrote the book to set the record straight.

Another author, Len Warner, also has his book out at the library this month. Metamorphosis in the Mediterranean is a recollection of Warner’s experiences during World War II.

“I guess the experiences I had traveling in World War II and the countries gave me another outlook about war and some of the things that happened,” Warner said. “It’s a very different world, the bloody part of war.”

He wrote the book just after the war ended. “I primarily did it for my family, my wife and children letting them know what happened,” Warner said.

He later added a part to the book about the religious aspect of war and his relation to it. The book contains some photographs of Warner and other individuals involved in the war.

Some local residents were featured in books that are now on display at the library as well.

Vito Trause was a main character in Paul W. Church’s Cigarettes for Bread. Trause was a prisoner of war in Germany under Hitler’s rule. This book tells the account of Church, along with three fellow prisoners, including Trause.

“I worked with this fella in Munich prison camp,” Trause said. “There were four of us that traveled together when we left Munich. We got on motorcycles and traveled to Paris, France when the war ended.”

Retired New York City detective Fred Santucci was also featured in a book by Christopher Ruddy, that is now on display at the library. The Strange Death of Vince Foster is about an investigation of a suicide that Santucci and his partner believed was a homicide. Chapter 3 focuses on Santucci and his partner’s role in this investigation.

“We had a situation where we work on cases that need expertise,” Santucci explained. “We went down to Washington and we said this is ridiculous and no way was it a suicide.”

He and his partner went to the crime scene and reenacted the so-called suicide. Chapter 3 lists 21 reasons why the pair believed it was not a suicide.

The two were also featured on the History Channel for this investigation.

The library is also showing township resident Scott Swift’s two children’s books. Swift created these stories for his two sons at bedtime, before deciding to publish them.

The first, The Traveling Salesman’s Darktime Tales Anthology, was published in 2010, with the second, Darktime Tales: Innkeeper’s Vampire, following shortly after in 2011.

“They’re about a traveling salesman who is also a wizard of sorts and he travels around selling magical items and helping people in trouble and fighting dragons and werewolves,” Swift explained.

What makes Swift’s children’s books different is the characters’ anonymity. He never names or describes the physical attributes of the salesman.

“I started doing this because I was telling the story to my own kids and after a couple of weeks I realized I had never described him or given a name, and after a year and a half I asked them to describe what he looks like and they described something completely different than how I pictured the wizard,” he said. “I really wanted to make this something that any kid could identify with of any background.”

Washington Township resident Kathleen Gerard has her , In Transit, in the library’s display. The book is loosely based on of Gerard’s friends who was struggling to earn money as an early childhood educator. She took the police exam and ended up becoming an officer for more than 20 years.

Gerard wrote the novel nearly two decades ago, while in her mid-20s. She was unable to find book companies interested in publishing her novel, but after 17 years, an editor contacted Gerard and her novel was picked up.

In Transit won Best Romance Novel in the 2011 New York Book Festival.

To see the exhibit, visit the Washington Township Library, 144 Woodfield Road, Washington Township. The library is open Monday, Tuesday and Thursday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Wednesday and Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.