My Works
You can order this "deftly crafted" book directly from here.

Here's what key reviewers say:
The Midwest Book Review's Michael J. Carson:
Set in the high-paced, volatile, and competitive world of Madison Avenue in the 1960s, "The Poodle at The Poodle" is the story of a young advertising copywriter who accepts a retired senior executive's offer to guarantee him wealth, fame and success. But there's a price -- and it's a doozey! Author Bernard Ryan Jr. draws upon his own years of experience and expertise in the advertising world to bring a feeling for genuine authenticity in this Faustian-style novel of greed, ambition, and the cost of success. Deftly crafted from first page to last, "The Poodle at The Poodle" is very highly recommended for personal reading lists and community library American fiction collections.
Publishers Weekly:
This well-made book re-tells the Dr. Faustus legend as it might have played out in American business. An 81-year-old narrator tells of Foster’s ascendance in advertising in the1950s & 60s. An ex co-worker tells Foster, recently passed up for a promotion to Vice President, he can give him career success in trade for his soul. The book offers great knowledge of advertising — presentations, strategies, meetings, and descriptions of air travel in those decades are accurate and interesting. The story offers believable dialogue and a good hook — we want to know if Satan ends up with his soul, and if Foster gets the success offered.
Amazon’s Top Reviewer:
This story did hook me from the earliest pages. The author is a natural-born storyteller, providing readers with an eloquent narrative featuring natural, free-flowing dialogue. I've read several Faustian stories over the years, and The Poodle at The Poodle acquits itself quite well among its literary forebears.
Amazon reviewer Cathi L. Radner:
Great voice. Unique, evocative, draws you right in. The sort of book that will keep a reader reading.
ISBN: 1-4382-2299-8. 300 pages. Quality trade paperback. Price $14.95.
Tyler's Titanic
To order from Amazon or Barnes & Noble, click below:

The Wright Brothers: Inventors of the Airplane
Do you like true-crime books as well as history and biography? Here's my favorite of my own books. And it's now considered "a classic" by British true-crime buffs. To read the book's Introduction and Table of Contents, click The Poisoned Life of Mrs. Maybrick in Selected Works (right-hand column). There you will also find photos of principals in this historic case, plus more information on the book.
For more details, also scroll down here:
The Poisoned Life of Mrs. Maybrick
This 292-page book of narrative non-fiction--a true story that entertains like a novel--takes you from the shipboard meeting of the 18-year-old American girl and the 42-year-old Englishman in 1881 to her death in 1941 as a lonely derelict whose past was unknown. You get details of the reprehensible treatment of Mrs. Maybrick by her husband's family. You learn what happened when she weekended in London with Maybrick's handsome associate. You watch as Maybrick succumbs to an arsenic diet. You discover why the press found her guilty before the trial, yet England's leading barrister proved her not guilty in the public mind despite a hanging judge and jury. You learn the details of the uproar that followed, the last-minute-before-hanging commutation to imprisonment, the 15-year trans-Atlantic effort to get her released, her return to America and acclamation, and her years as "the cat woman" in a tiny cabin in rural Connecticut.
The Poisoned Life of Mrs. Maybrick was originally available only in the United Kingdom, where it was published both in hard cover and paperback and was a selection of the U.K.'s Biography Book Club. It was published in the U.S. in 2000 by iUniverse. Its ISBN is 0595000959.
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It's been fun writing six biographies for Facts On File's Ferguson Career Biographies series. Here's how they look.



Hillary Rodham Clinton: First Lady and Senator




The Secret Service
Simple Ways to Help Your Kids Become Dollar-Smart
Whether your kids are just receiving their first allowance, or are taking their first steps toward financial independence, there are lessons you can share about earning, spending, borrowing, and saving. Simple Ways to Help Your Kids Become Dollar-Smart is organized into these four categories, and information is presented in an easy-to-use format, so busy parents can quickly find the specific tips they need. Every chapter features a list of dollar-smart tips, including:
. 10 tips on giving an allowance
. 11 ideas for creating and managing a spending plan
. 14 suggestions for borrowing and credit
. 24 tips on saving money.
Throughout, the authors stress the importance of developing a spending plan that is linked to stages in a child's financial maturity, and to the equal importance of making sure that parent-child communication over money is a positive experience for both sides. Easy to read, and packed with innovative--and in many cases enjoyable--ideas, this book delivers tested wisdom that every parent can immediately put to good use.
Published by Walker and Company, this book holds ISBN 0802774296P.
To read a review and the book's Table of Contents, click on Simple Ways to Help Your Kids Become Dollar-smart (right-hand column).
To order, click on Amazon or Barnes and Noble below:
Helping Your Child Start School
. What can I do to help my child make the transition from home to school?
. Is all-day school too much for a five-year-old?
. Why can some kindergarten children already read and my child can't?
. And much, much more.
Helping Your Child Start School describes the emotional and physical makeup of the preschooler and shows the parent how to become a "resource center" for the child's development of self-image. It takes the reader through the typical kindergarten day, describing the purpose of each activity, explaining how the child is introduced to such key subjects as arithmetic.
Packed with useful information and presented in a light, easy-to-read style, Helping Your Child Start School will do much to relieve the wondering--and the worry--that all parents experience when their child takes that major step into the world outside the home.
Helping Your Child Start School is a Citadel Press Book from the Carol Publishing Group. Its ISBN is 0806517980.
To read pages from Chapter One and to look over the Table of Contents, click on Helping Your Child Start School in Selected Works (right-hand column).
To order, click on Amazon or Barnes and Noble below:
Community Service for Teens (8 volumes)
. Caring for Animals
. Expanding Education & Literacy
. Helping the Ill, the Poor, & the Elderly
. Increasing Neighborhood Service
. Participating in Government
. Promoting the Arts & Sciences
. Protecting the Environment
. Serving with Police, Fire, & EMS
To read reviews, click on Community Service for Teens under Selected Works (right-hand column).

Great American Trials, Great World Trials, and Sex, Sin and Mayhem: Notorious Trials of the Nineties
. Great American Trials 2 volumes, 1,675 pages.
. Great World Trials, including Mata Hari, Mohandas Gandhi, Tiananmen Square Dissidents, 536 pages.
. Sex, Sin and Mayhem: Trials of the Nineties, including Woody Allen-Mia Farrow, Lorena and John Bobbitt, Tonya Harding, Dr. Kevorkian, O.J. Simpson, 210 pages.
To read reviews of these "trials books," click on their titles under Selected Works (right-hand column).