Boynton Beach
Wednesday, February 16 

Net helps Boynton man launch writing career

Special to Neighborhood Post
Wednesday, February 16, 2000

BOYNTON BEACH -- The dedications at the beginning of the novel Hell to Pay reveal quite a bit about the author's heart and soul. 

The tale of Capt. Hal Kirby, heroic commander of a Navy air group aboard the USS Valley Forge during the Korean War, is dedicated to Navy pilots. 

The book also is dedicated to Jenny Romella, a single mother from Absecon, N.J., who always encouraged her only child to explore his fascination with flying. 

Peter Azzole, an operations manager at Bethesda Memorial Hospital in Boynton Beach, is that son, now 60 years old, retired from the Navy, and a first-time author. He's also part of a revolutionary method of digital book publishing
capable of producing books on demand, whether it's one copy or 1 million copies. 

Azzole will be signing his book at noon Thursday at the Bethesda hospital gift shop. Another book signing is set for 7:30-8:30 p.m. Friday at Books a Million in Delray Beach. Besides the hospital gift shop [and Books a Million in Delray], Hell to Pay (toExcel Press), is available [at this writing] only on the Internet through iUniverse.com, Amazon.com and on Web sites for most major book stores. 

Not bad for a fellow who didn't even finish college until he was fiftysomething. 

Azzole's Navy career spanned 20 years, starting soon after he finished high school in 1958. Despite a lifelong passion for flying, Azzole was not a Navy pilot, but rather an intelligence analyst who served in Japan and Hawaii, but never in Korea. 

Nevertheless, he felt compelled to tell a Navy pilot's story. "The Navy is part of me and flying is part of me," said Azzole, who earned his commercial pilot's license after leaving the Navy. 

After Azzole's stint in the military, he held assorted jobs in the defense industry and was an operations manager for PanAm. He started writing Hell to Pay in 1992 when he was laid off from that job. It wasn't long before his destiny became clear.

"I thought to myself, I can write a book. I will write a book," he said.  He went home, dusted off his copy of The Sea War in Korea, published by the U.S. Naval Institute, and started researching and writing. He also enrolled in classes at Florida Atlantic University and earned a bachelor's degree in health care administration, which led to his job with an independent physician's association at Bethesda. 

The first draft of his book was called The Yalu River, named after the river in North Korea. It was too stiff, so he rewrote it.

"I was forcing plot into historical events and I didn't like it. So I redesigned it and renamed it Hell to Pay," he said. 

The protagonist is Capt. Kirby, who visits Gen. MacArthur in the book's opening pages. Without giving too much away, that visit launches our hero into the air war in Korea. There's espionage, romance, government corruption and conflict with an evil antagonist named Luther Garr. 

"The plot unfolded just like life," said Azzole, who hopes that women won't reject his work because it's about war and planes. "Even my wife, my toughest critic, got interested in it." 

Azzole's favorite parts of the book are also the saddest, such as the section describing Kirby's time as a prisoner of war. Azzole also likes his descriptions of the hero's anguish at being shot down and wounded.

"I was so into the character that I could sit there and cry," Azzole said. "There's no way I could ever read those parts at a book signing." 

Azzole sent his finished manuscript to various publishers and agents, got a few nibbles, but no contract. He joined a writers club on America Online, where he heard about on-demand publishing. For $99, toExcel Press, part of iUniverse.com, published Azzole's book. Hell to Pay was recently featured on the "Staff Picks" list at iUniverse.com.

Azzole is writing two more novels: One takes place during World War II; the other is set in the years before World War II. Additional information on Peter Azzole is available on the Internet at www.geocities.com/peter_jaye/htp.htm.