The day an author launches a new novel is always one filled with excitement and more than a little trepidation. Will anyone come to the event? Will anyone buy the book? Read it? Will they like it?
Yesterday, we unveiled Quest for Redemption, the third book in the Quest series. I was taking a few chances with this one. I’d introduced the protagonist, Jim Hayes, in the first book as a middle-aged widower seeking a sense of honor in a life that had seen tragedy that overshadowed whatever accomplishments he’d achieved in his career. He’s jealous of his younger brother, Mark, who’s just concluding a long, decorated career as an officer in the U.S. Army. In the first book, Jim gets his chance to shine when he’s unexpectedly tapped by the CIA to go to Somalia on a sensitive mission to convince an al Qaeda chieftain to defect, taking advantage of an unexpected personal connection. He succeeds, barely, and in the process he meets Gina, a fellow martial artist and a widow herself. Jim’s upward arc continues in Quest for Vengeance, which focuses more on Mark and his new wife, Sophie, after she’s targeted by a Serbian warlord with a score to settle against the younger Hayes brother.
I knew that I’d be setting Redemption in Peru, at least in part. Sue and I visited that South American country in 2017 to hike the Salkantay Trail, and some stories one of our guides related about his recent encounters with Shining Path guerillas resonated with me. First of all, I was glad none of those guys showed up while we were on the trail, which was hard enough as it was; we hiked some 50 miles over five days at altitudes exceeding 15,000 feet. Second, I knew that someday I’d have to use those stories as the basis for a book.
But there had to be more than just going to Peru and dealing with guerillas. I wanted Jim and Gina to be experiencing great stress that would cause them to look at the trip as their last chance to gain personal redemption in each other’s eyes. This was certainly not the case for me and Sue when we prepared for our Peru trip; we’d been married 21 years at that point, with each year better than the last. There were a couple different scenarios I envisioned for the couple to be involved with, and the one I chose was difficult to write about, because I know how I’d feel if I was mixed up in something like that. (You might ask, what is it? Well, you can find out in the book!)
I think it turned out pretty well, and my beta readers have heartily agreed. Now, it’s up to the public to determine whether this is a good book or not. I was very gratified to meet many of them at Northwind Book & Fiber in Spooner during the launch.
It was a great time, and I want to thank Carol and her staff at Northwind for hosting the launch. My novels have been in Carol’s fine store for years and this was my first launch there. It won’t be the last!
Haven’t got your copy yet? Check out my website for a sample chapter and a link to its Amazon page.
Coming next: another Jo Geary thriller.
When a new book arrives, I always get the question: “When does the next one come out?” Some authors have contracts with their publishers that require a book a year, for example, so they know that they have to get cracking. In truth, every author is working on three books at the same time. First of all is their current work in progress. Second, they are still working on promoting the previous book. And finally, they are thinking ahead to the next book, writing down ideas, piecing together plot points, and so on. So, that’s what I’ve been doing with the next one, which will be the fourth entry in the White Vixen series, starring Air Force special operator Jo Ann Geary.
The Silver Falcon will be set in the Yukon Territory of northwestern Canada in the fall of 1990. NORAD radar picks up an object in high altitude, cruising over Alaska from west to east. An apparent computer glitch prevents its detection until it is almost out of U.S. airspace. Fighters are scrambled from Elmendorf Air Force Base near Anchorage in an attempt to intercept the object before it reaches Canada, but the pilots aren’t able to get within visual range before they’re ordered to retreat from the border. The object comes down in the Yukon some fifty miles north of Dawson City.
What is it? Where did it come from? Is it Russian? Chinese? Those governments are saying nothing about it, not even denying its existence. U.S. President George Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney agree that it must be found as soon as possible. Mulroney dispatches his most trusted intelligence agent, code-named the Mountie, to work with a Canadian Rangers unit tasked with finding and securing the object. Bush assigns the White Vixen, U.S. Air Force colonel Jo Ann Geary, to represent American interests. The two agents meet in Whitehorse and join up with the Ranger unit in Dawson, from which they set out to locate the downed UFO. Nobody really believes that it’s extra-terrestrial in origin, but it seems the Americans and Canadians aren’t the only ones who want to find out: within hours of their departure into the wilderness, Geary receives word that an unknown aircraft was detected entering Canadian airspace from over the Arctic Ocean, with indications that it dropped paratroopers in the vicinity of the landing site. Making things even more difficult are tensions within the Ranger unit, composed entirely of First Nations troops, who are suspicious of a white officer from Ottawa and an American with Korean ancestry.
It’s now a race against time, and the Canadians, with their American advisor, are running out of it. Aerial surveillance of the site has been limited because of heavy cloud cover. The first winter storm of the season is closing in. The foreign paratroopers may be closer to the site than Geary and her team, and if they find the object first, whatever secrets it holds might be lost to the North American allies for good, a loss that could lead to a serious threat to U.S.-Canadian security. Battling the worsening weather and a wilderness that contains threats that are human and otherwise, the White Vixen and her Canadian partner have to hold their unit together and beat the mysterious paratroopers to the landing site before the object, whatever it might be, is lost to them forever.
A Strenuous Writer's Life 