One does not normally expect to see the words “mob” or “organized crime” in the same sentence as “Chestnut Hill,” but Alfred O’Neill, who grew up in Chestnut Hill and came back here to live 16 years ago, is an anomaly. O’Neill was an advertising agency executive for 30 years and is now semi-retired. What makes him different from other crime novelists is that he has first-hand familial knowledge of a life of crime. He has based much of his writing on his late father — also named Alfred O’Neill — who led a checkered life.

“My father was the ninth child in an Irish Catholic immigrant family from County Derry,” O’Neill told the Local in a Zoom interview. He ran afoul of the law when he got involved with money laundering for “the mob.” That led to a three-to-five-year stretch in Allenwood Federal Prison. While there, the elder O’Neill’s roommate was John Phillips, the hugely successful songwriter and lead singer of the 1960s’ soft rock quartet, The Mamas & the Papas.

“My dad said he was told by the mob that if he kept quiet [about naming any names], he would get a job upon release from prison. If he did not keep quiet, he would be killed. So, he kept quiet,” O’Neill said. “After release from prison, he was given a job doing asbestos removal. His best friend was a hit man who had killed many people.”

O’Neill’s first crime novel, “Even a Pandemic Can’t Stop Love and Murder,” was released in 2021. There were eight reviews of the book on amazon.com, all five stars. Told to him by his father years ago, the plot of O’Neill’s book centers on a robbery at a mob-owned bank and the violent consequences that followed. From a childhood that he says was marked by wiretaps, mob dinners and FBI agents following his father, O’Neill learned to understand the complexities of love, crime and human behavior.

Inspired by the snappy dialogue of 1930s’ talkies and the ever-present danger of the pandemic era, O’Neill used this true story to show what he believes are the major themes in human behavior, the choices we make and the consequences we have to live with.

Growing up in Chestnut Hill, O’Neill said he was very fortunate to receive a private school education at William Penn Charter School, which he called “a wonderful school.” He then earned degrees in creative writing and film production at the University of Arizona, which he followed with a master’s degree in communications from Stanford University in 1983.

“But I then avoided the film industry like the plague,” he said. “I thought I’d lose my mortal soul if I worked in it.” Instead, O’Neill worked in advertising in San Francisco for five years, then moved to New York, where his wife had lived. Then O’Neill returned to Chestnut Hill, often traveling back and forth to Princeton and New York City, balancing consulting projects and writing.

For seven years, O’Neill and his second wife, Nadine Caputo, also had a blog, theoutspokentraveler.com. “She would say, ‘If you love the story [of my family] so much, why don’t you write a book about it?’” he said. “Nadine died of cancer on April 10, 2020, 11 years to the day that we met along Forbidden Drive. Then I started right away to write the book.”

O’Neill’s second book, “Even Climate Change Can’t Stop Love and Murder,” another thriller about love and murder, trauma and healing, was released in November 2022. The story deals with climate chaos, insurrectionists and white supremacists. The protagonist, Alby, accompanied by his companion, Ginger, is relocated by government agents from New Jersey to Sedona, New Mexico, but a dark episode in Iraq has him permanently in hiding.

O’Neill’s latest book, “Funeral of Lies,” which will be released in late November by Aeson Publishing in Mt. Airy, is more about political corruption than organized crime. Kirkus Reviews, a highly regarded book review magazine, has given “Funeral of Lies” a rave review. “Tension builds throughout the story,” the review states, “by pairing psychological unease with the grind of local politics, and it shows how grief, racism and ambition collide in a troubled city. … The narrative’s psychological edge is engagingly sharp, as is Evan’s corrosive narration. [Evan is a public relations professional who runs his uncle’s campaign for mayor.] A dark, jagged and compulsively readable story that digs deep into grief, politics and betrayal.”

O’Neill insists all of the characters in “Funeral of Lies” are purely fictional. “We began a sensitive topic,” he said, “how to avoid real-life characters in telling a fictionalized version of a real event? As they say, there is no one in this book, living or dead, who is a real character.”

For more information, visit alfredoneill.com. Len Lear can be reached at lenlear@chestnuthilllocal.com.