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International Thrillers
Welcome to my life in books. This is a collection of six of my one-off entertainments, each containing details of my life abroad combined with a dash of mystery and excitement along with a serious national security threat.
Whether it's living in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou along with SARS and the juggernaut of the Chinese economy, or life in Brussels with frequent trips to the Mediterranean, these six thrillers will give you a closeup view of the international crime and mysteries that continue to affect our daily lives.
Read in any order:
Jake Maguire FBI Mysteries
Jake is my guy, living in Northern Virginia and Washington, DC. He inhabits all my haunts here in the States, eats the food I eat, encounters the people I meet on a daily basis, and tackles threats that affect us all.
He also happens to travel along the same paths I've taken, solving cases in places where I've lived, from China to Mongolia to Switzerland to Hawaii.
Recommended reading order:
Mick and Natalie Spy Novels
Mick Pierce is my original hero. He gets things done in a tricky world. He has lived alongside me as I lived three years in Yugoslavia, four in Taiwan, returned many times to Switzerland, and spent three glorious years in India. He knows the political landscape well and has the guts to do what it takes to make things right.
Never count Mick out, but don't assume it doesn't take its toll on him.
Recommended reading order:
Brad and May China Thrillers
Meet Brad. He's my alter ego. Every time I go skiing in the American West or survey a dam in China or stroll through Parisian parks, he's alongside me screwing up in a good way, solving puzzles with a clever intellect, and wooing the woman of his dreams.
My good friend Steve Donaldson helped me dream up this ode to American ingenuity and innocence. Like Brad, we are all susceptible to the unscrupulous but also capable of saving ourselves and the people we love.
Recommended reading order:
Other Novels and Stories
I've been writing since childhood. First with a pencil, where I scribbled Lost Cutlass in Homewood, Illinois, to a typewriter where I pounded out Summerville as my Honors thesis at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, to an IBM PC knockoff where I saved to floppy disk the first drafts of Alec Pierce's life in Comoros Moon on my family's first assignment abroad.
In the end, my earliest literary efforts have been realized as my first imaginings mapped out the contours of my life. They still draw me back to the past.
Read in any order:
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