Hynes, Charles J. 1936–

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Hynes, Charles J. 1936–

PERSONAL:

Born 1936.

ADDRESSES:

Office—210 Joralemon St., Brooklyn, NY 11201-3745.

CAREER:

Attorney, educator, and author. City of New York fire department, fire commissioner, 1980-82; King's County, Brooklyn, NY, district attorney and special state prosecutor, c. 1990—; has also worked as an assistant district attorney and special prosecutor. Has been an instructor at St. John's School of Law, St. John's University, Brooklyn Law School, and at Fordham University School of Law.

WRITINGS:

(With Bob Drury) Incident at Howard Beach: The Case for Murder (nonfiction), Putnam (New York, NY), 1990.

Triple Homicide (novel), Thomas Dunne Books (New York, NY), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Charles J. Hynes is an attorney, law instructor, and veteran trial lawyer. He has served as a special prosecutor in several cases throughout his career in New York, and was appointed special prosecutor by then-governor of New York Mario Cuomo in the 1987 Howard Beach murder trial. Along with Bob Drury, Hynes recounts his integral role in the racially charged case in Incident at Howard Beach: The Case for Murder. Hynes and Drury describe the crime, which involved a series of racially motivated attacks by white teenagers in 1986; it left one black man dead and another seriously injured. Hynes recreates the investigation, trial, and aftermath of his successful prosecution in detail in the book, which Publishers Weekly reviewer Genevieve Stuttaford called a ‘brisk, evenhanded, modestly told procedural."

Hynes is also the author of the novel Triple Homicide. He has ‘struck gold with his searing first novel,’ according to Ken Bolton in a Library Journal review. Protagonist Steven Holt is a highly decorated and respected New York police officer whose career was propelled by his reputation for fairness and ethical behavior. Holt's life is shattered when he is accused of murdering three men, one of whom was a fellow police officer. As Holt's trial progresses, evidence emerges that will shake the NYPD to its core, exposing years of corruption, intimidation, and scandal within the venerable police force. A parallel tale focuses on Holt's uncle, who was a police officer who faced corruption in the department some two decades earlier. Hynes ‘makes excellent use of a documentary-like style that perfectly suits the material,’ commented Booklist critic David Pitt. Bolton noted that Hynes's professional experience in law enforcement ‘lends instant credibility and an insider voice that few authors are able to attain."