Combustible: A Fireman's Road to Hell Hits a Detour at 9/11

by Billy O'Connor, Frank Pace

Conor Kilcullen is an adrenaline junkie. A longtime member of the New York City fire department, Conor will be the first to charge into a blazing apartment or crawl down a smokey hallway to save a trapped infant. Conor is also a cocaine addict, an alcoholic, and an inveterate gambler who blames God for his first wife's tragic early death. It is a combustible combination. Morally rudderless, Conor temporarily flirts with salvation when a beautiful Irish-Catholic fiddler starts tending bar in his nightclub. Colleen Quinn is everything he's not -religious, anchored, and ethical. Co-written by a retired NYC fire lieutenant who was a 9/11 first responder, Combustible accurately depicts the procedures and operations of the FDNY while focusing on one troubled firefighter. The novel illustrates how the strength of the brotherhood sometimes erases the border between friends and family. While fighting fires in a busy Bronx station stocked with screwballs, Conor battles atheism, alcoholism, and his inner demons. The tension in Combustible builds not only through the dangerous fire scenes and the accurate depictions of these Bronx firefighters, but to a subplot that finds Conor torn between the virtuous Colleen and the girl of his salacious dreams - an Australian whom he meets while on holiday in New Orleans. An already Combustible situation quickly accelerates when she is transferred to New York. The book makes a cataclysmic detour at 9/11. Conor has several decisions to make ... decisions that will shape the remainder of his life.

256 pages, Hardcover

Published September 11, 2021

About the author

Billy O’Connor was born in County Cork, Ireland, and grew up on the Bronx streets. After Vietnam, Billy was a Teamster, a pub and restaurant owner, and before becoming a N.Y.C firefighter for 23 years, an illegal bookie. He sailed dove and traveled the world burdened by his addiction to drugs and alcohol.

After the tragedy of 9/11 and the loss of 343 of his brother firefighters he sobered up and attended the University of Florida. At the age of 62 he earned his journalism degree and began to write . He has written two highly praised weekly columns, two screenplays and numerous political pieces. He also finished third out of nearly 800 contestants in Arizona’s funniest comic contest. If anyone personifies that life truly begins at 60, it is Billy O’Connor. Confessions of a Bronx Bookie is his much-anticipated first novel.