The Warrior

by Stephen Alexander

If he had lived 3,000 years ago, Gabriel McCahill would have been a warrior, and the poets would have written epics about him. I will attempt to tell my brother’s story in the same way. Gabriel McCahill lived in a different time than the warriors of old. Instead of riding a horse, he drove a Chevrolet pickup truck. Instead of armor, he wore aviator sunglasses. Instead of a sword, he had a .45 caliber automatic pistol. That all comes much later, though. A former high school baseball star, Gabriel McCahill returned home from the Vietnam War wounded and struggling to find his place in the world. Desperate to support his family and be the man he expects himself to be, Gabriel accepts an invitation to play a card game with men who work for Pedro Azzaro, Flint, Michigan’s biggest gangster. That decision leads to Gabriel spending the next 20 years in prison. On the day Gabriel walks out of prison, he hopes to make peace with his family, the brother who has always loved him, the son and daughter he never knew who hate him, and the wife who left him and remarried. But sometimes, a fight is never really over. Even after 20 years. When his family is dragged into the fray, Gabriel has no choice but to go to war in the most important battle of his life. Action-packed and breathtaking in its depth, The Warrior pays homage to the epic tales as it explores what it means to be both a hero and a man.

331 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 15, 2021