Author Description

Chicago 1925. It is the Chicago of brutal gangland legend, but a small glimmer of hope exists amidst these violent bloody boulevards. It is the home St. Vincent's Orphanage, a refuge for children that no one wants, run by a priest, Father Tim. Father Tim is product of the same mean streets, a man most of his superiors had also equally abandoned. He is a man who answers to higher calling of the bell, inside the steeple and inside the ring. Knowing his young brood don't stand a chance in such a cold world he educates them in mind, spirit and body through extensive reading, religious and ringside tutorials. Father Tim soon becomes a father figure to many of the orphans.One such student, Archie Mannis, shows promise with his fists. He fights many junior bouts under the tutelage of St. Vincent's and fosters a reputation during the Great Depression but soon becomes the ward of another relative, Uncle Sam. Wounded during the Second World War, Archie is asked to fight a few exhibition bouts to boost morale for his fellow soldiers. He gains recognition with Hollywood stars and aging boxers eager to help out the war effort. His war wounds come at a price. He is addicted to morphine. Upon returning stateside and looking for work, he hooks up an old contact from the war and starts fighting in earnest, everywhere and anywhere. The war may be over but his own battle is just beginning.Mannis' fists take him all the way from the darkened alleyways and gutters of Atlantic City and New York to the bright lights of The Golden Era of Hollywood and the world stage where he mixes with legendary boxers, writers, famous Hollywood stars and notorious mobsters and into a shadowy abyss of addiction where he fights the biggest bout of his life. Will Archie Mannis still be left standing at the clang of the last bell? Find out in The Last Round of Archie Mannis!