Presentation Date: Tuesday, November 5, 2024
Villages resident Phil Bookman had a long career as a software entrepreneur, starting a number of successful software companies. A lover of mystery novels, he decided the world needed murder mysteries set in Silicon Valley featuring a high-tech CEO hero. So after he retired, he wrote Opium (OPM-Other People’s Money), the first of eleven novels in what became the Mike Gold Mystery Series. Fictional Los Gatos resident Mike Gold is a great tech CEO, but murders seem to find him with alarming regularity. Phil says his life is not nearly as exciting as Mike’s.
In contrast to wealthy Mike Gold, Phil’s second series features young PI Joe Brink, whose threadbare office is located above a bakery and fro-yo shop in downtown Campbell. Joe yearns to be a hard-boiled detective. He’s good at detecting, but the hard-boiled part eludes him. Phil’s eighth Joe Brink mystery, Boutique Murders, was released in September of this year.
Phil grew up in Seaford, New York, where he met and married his high school sweetheart, Lois. He has degrees from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Adelphi University and Santa Clara University. Before moving to the Villages in 2023, Lois and Phil resided in Campbell for 18 years and Los Gatos for 31 years.