Reviewers of this five-star comic novel have been ecstatic about its kinky humor, calling "Fifteen Feet Beneath Manhattan" "hysterically funny and outrageous," and "a very funny sci-fi, gothic horror." Michael Silverstein's book is a wild riff about some very strange doings under the streets of Gotham in 1973. A criminal society has taken root there along with a pollution-spawned new chain of life, both of which must be destroyed by an elite, secretly created military unit headed by a guy planning a coup d'état. All that stands in the way of New York City descending into utter chaos, the country getting a military dictator, and the destruction of our present natural order, is a bumbling alternative newspaper reporter with landlord problems, and a pistol-toting feminist with anger issues. Joe Gandelman, Editor-In-Chief in Arts & Entertainment at The Moderate Voice wrote in his review of Fifteen Feet Beneath Manhattan: "The only question in reading this book is exactly where has Silverstein been HIDING all these years as a fiction writer? He is a GREAT writer and enthralling storyteller whose writing packs a hay-maker punch with vividly constructed scenes and punchy, realistic dialogue - a writer who easily elicits a chuckle or two (or more)... I could easily see him selling a script to Hollywood."
About the Author: The late Michael Silverstein was probably the only person who ever coveted the title "America's Best-Loved Financial Poet." But, if he thought like other people, we wouldn't have had the joy of reading his unique, insightful, humorous voice. Only a man who combined knowledge and vision with a pathological fear of personal success would be regularly featured as a financial analyst in the New York Times at the same time that he was paying his bills by delivering the New York Times. Only a business writer with the soul of a poet would organize the largest investors' show in New England not to make money, but as a work of performance art. During his varied career, Mike Silverstein served as a Senior Editor for Bloomberg News, and wrote a dozen books, serious and comic, fiction and non-fiction, in poetry and prose, on a variety of subjects ranging from politics, to the financial derivatives market, to the environment, to solar energy, to parking ticketing. His work includes three comic novels and one alternative history novel. Hundreds of his articles and Op Ed pieces have appeared in publications such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Atlanta Constitution, and Christian Science Monitor. He was a columnist for the Los Angeles Times and Boston Phoenix, and a regular commentator on National Public Radio. Favorable reviews of his writing appeared in media such as The New York Post, The Washington Post, USA Today, The Philadelphia Inquirer and others. He passed away at the age of 75 on September 27, 2016.