Dave Copeland met the subject for his first book the way so many other people meet these days: on Craigslist.
In November 2004 Copeland was toying with the idea of writing a book on life inside the federal witness protection program when he came across an ad on the popular site from a couple that claimed they were wards of the program. Ron Gonen and Honey Tessman said they were looking for the right writer to tell their story. After a few email exchanges, Copeland began the long process of reporting every detail of Gonen’s life.
Copeland quickly realized that life in the witness protection program is dull, and the more interesting story always comes down to how you ended up in there and not what happens once you disappear (a separate article focusing on Gonen’s life in the federal witness protection program after becoming a cooperating government witness appeared in Justice magazine last year). By the time Gonen arrived in New York City in 1982 and hooked up with the Israeli mafia he was a career criminal whose crime wave spanned three decades and three continents.
Blood & Volume: Inside New York’s Israeli Mafia is the story of a brutal street gang that terrorized New York City in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s and how one man — Ron Gonen — turned his back on a life of crime to help bring them down. Gonen’s story and his efforts to resist pressure to join his fellow Israelis in importing heroin, contract killing and other rackets offers readers a front row seat into the gang that fell just short of replacing the La Cosa Nostra as the major player in the New York underworld. Prosecutors credit Gonen and his testimony in helping bring the gang down.
Blood & Volume is written in a narrative nonfiction style and is Copeland’s first book. Copeland’s freelance work has appeared in Reason, the Wall Street Journal online, Boston Common and dozens of national and regional newspapers and magazines. Before shifting his focus to long-form journalism in 2004, he was a staff writer for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, where he held a variety of different positions over five years. At the Trib, Copeland won several awards while working as an investigative reporter, beat reporter and columnist, primarily covering business and politics.
Copeland, 35, is currently conducting research for a second book and works full-time as a freelance writer. He is also a guest visiting lecturer at Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts. Copeland has previously been a staff writer for Dow Jones in Jersey City, N.J. and the Old Colony Memorial, a weekly newspaper in Plymouth, Mass. He recently received his Master of Fine Arts in creative nonfiction writing from Goucher College.
Copeland was raised outside of Boston in Melrose, Mass. and earned a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from the University of Massachusetts in 1996. He moved back to greater Boston with his dog Cosmo in 2005 and enjoys backpacking, cooking, running, music and travel. He is available for a variety of freelance writing assignments, including corporate and business writing, and can be reached by email through our contact form or at 781.507.4312.