Michael F. Rizzo was born in Buffalo, New York. In the 1990s he produced and wrote a weekly television show, COMX-TV about the busy comic book industry. With his co-host, they interviewed hundreds of comic book creators and attended dozens of conventions.
His first book, Through The Mayors' Eyes, was finished in 1990 but languished for 15 years. He found self-publishing and released the book in 2005. After releasing several more self-published books, he published four books with The History Press.
Rizzo ran Zippy Delivery, a bike messenger courier business, for seven years, then started The Mob Tours.
In 2013 he and his family moved to the Pacific Northwest. In 2015 Rizzo co-hosted Northwest Brew Talk with his wife. They covered the beer industry in Washington state for two years interviewing dozens of brewery entrepreneurs. That year he released Buffalo Beer, and in 2016 he published Washington Beer.
He is a member of International Thriller Writers.

Set during Prohibition this is one of Buffalo, New York's most blood-soaked crime tales. This is the story of the bloody reign of Polish gangster John "Korney" Kwiatkowski, which ended with one of his friends in the electric chair. Before the end came, Korney masterminded robberies all over the city, leading a gang of violent thugs, dubbed the Korney Gang, while he maintained a facade of gentility. With names like Ziggy, Bolly, and Smithy, these bootleggers, murderers, and robbers introduced Buffalo to violent crime with the introduction of the machine gun. No one was safe, including law enforcement, as the Korney Gang blasted their way out of every incident. Through careful research of newspapers, court transcripts, and genealogy, the story of this gang slowly emerges.