Set in 1978, this suspense-thriller examines the life of a young widowed Customs Inspector, Christine Keaton, a single mother, who is trying to balance her life and manage her career in the days of the women's movement when women were rare and sometimes unwelcome in the male dominated world of law enforcement. The crash of a flight from Bogotá, Columbia on the runway of J.F.K. Airport where Christine works leads to an investigation of the smuggling of cocaine and child pornography into the United States which quickly becomes personal as a passenger who is dying points the way to a drug cartel, begging Christine to stop the atrocities committed by the leaders of the cartel, some of which involve the abuse of children. The United States Customs Service jumps in, and Christine is at the forefront of the investigation which changes her life forever as she faces an adversary so evil and powerful that it becomes doubtful that even the full force of the U.S. government can stop him. A novel of courage, hope, action, love, and suspense, A Customs Affair gives the reader an insider's view of the U.S. Customs Service in the 1970's when women were new to law enforcement careers and before technology all but eliminated the hands on, high risk business of a Customs Inspector.
About the Author: Pat was born in Brooklyn, New York, and lived in four of the five boroughs of New York City at various times. Her all girls high school experience at The Mary Louis Academy in Jamaica, New York, inspired her to want a non-traditional career for a woman of the 1960s. A graduate of Queens College of the City University of New York, Pat did just that when she became a federal law enforcement officer with the U.S. Customs Service in 1971. Wearing a uniform and a badge and carrying a gun, Pat arrested drug smugglers, among other law enforcement duties, while working at J.F.K. Airport. Later, as a Customs manager at the World Trade Center, she wrote courses for other officers, speeches for the Commissioner, and helped make changes in Customs field operations. Pat and her husband were both survivors of the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 1993, the same year that Pat and her husband and four daughters moved to Hunterdon County, New Jersey. She retired from the U.S. Customs Service in 1996 on an early retirement opportunity after twenty-five years of federal service. After earning a master's degree in English from Rutgers University in 1999, Pat became a college English teacher first, then a high school English teacher. Pat loves being with family, friends, entertaining, cooking, reading, writing, movies, theater, and her dog and cats. Now a widow with four adult daughters and six grandchildren, Pat is retired from college teaching in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.