Pen Name:
None
Genre:
Thriller (MIKE4 series), Historical “Magical Realism” (Steampunk Raj series), Mystery (Inquisitor short stories), Westerns (Adventurers’ Club short stories), Short Form Nonfiction (book reviews and military/intelligence history)
Website:
Social Media:
Other Contact:
MIKE4_author@yahoo.com
Bio
I am a Western New York native. I spend part of my year in central New Mexico. I had 27 years of federal service including 5 as a paratrooper and 22 as a case officer in the CIA. I retired in 2007 and have been a subject matter expert and instructor for a variety of military and intelligence community organizations. I have also served as the president of the Friends of the Bosque del Apache NWR and I am a Rotarian. I am a life member of the 82nd Airborne Association, US Army Ranger Association, and an associate life member of the US Special Forces Association. I am also a member in good standing of the TE Lawrence Society, the Kipling Society, and the Royal Society for Asiatic Affairs.
More from JR
I have submitted an article titled “Carving up the world” to Special Operations Journal. I have no idea when that will be published. I am working on MIKE4 #8 tentatively titled The Remains of a Spy. I am also beginning my research for the next Steampunk Raj novel. The Raj series requires substantial historical research to insure I put my characters in the right place at the right time. I also want my work on historical figures to be available in the time and place that I hope to put them. It takes about six months of research to create a Raj series novel.
Novels
Title: A Body on the Shoreline: A WWII Mystery
Publisher: Mission Point Press (2024)
Genre: Murder Mystery
It’s 1942, and a body is discovered on the shoreline of a secret training facility in Canada. Secret or not, this is Canadian territory, and the murder case belongs to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Warned to expect suspicion, if not total obstruction, RCMP Miles Lundin must find a murderer in a camp of trained killers. Fortunately, he is joined in the investigation by a visiting “outsider” from Royal Navy intelligence, Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming. The questions are clear: who and why? The answers, however, are as murky as the depths of Lake Ontario.
Available for Sale
Amazon (ebook)
Amazon (paperback)
The MIKE4 Series (7 books)
Publisher: Mission Point Press
Genre: Thriller
- MIKE4 (2019)
- Friend or Foe (2019)
- The Executioner’s Blade (2019)
- O’Connell’s Treasure (2019)
- Graveyard for Spies (2020)
- The Silicon Addiction (2021)
- Playground for Ambition (2022)
- The Swordfish Deception (2024)
The MIKE4 series follows the lives of two women in espionage, Sue O’Connell and her mother Barbara. Sue, callsign MIKE4, is a Special Operations Force operator who was gravely wounded in Afghanistan. After she is rehabilitated with her below-the-knee (BTK) prosthetic, Sue is offered options to leave service with a full disability or to join a special SOF intelligence unit. Sue wants to stay in the fight and opts to become a human intelligence (HUMINT) collector like her parents and her grandparents. Barbara O’Connell is a retired CIA case officer who still faces threats from Cold War enemies created both in her career and the career of her father in law. The vendetta between the O’Connell family and the Beroslav family runs through the books. It is a story of resilience as well as a multi-generational story of two different families in espionage.
Available for Sale
Amazon
Kindle, Paperback, and Audible
The Steampunk Raj Three-book Series
Title: A School for the Great Game
Publisher: Mission Point Press (2020)
Genre: Magical Realism/Young Adult
Elizabeth Bankroft is a thoroughly modern teenager in the Edwardian age. She is sent to a “finishing” school in the foothills of the Himalayas in the early 20th century. What she doesn’t realize is that it is a school for British spies defending the Empire. She receives training both in espionage and the mystic arts. Her first mission is the rescue of her parents captured in Afghanistan. How far will a teenager go to save her parents? To the ends of the earth.
Available for Sale
Title: A Sound like Distant Thunder
Publisher: Mission Point Press (2021)
Genre: Magical Realism/Young Adult
Elizabeth is now a full-fledged agent of the British Empire. The death of her first agent in the hands of German assassins makes it clear to her that the “Great Game” is now three sided – the British, Russian and German empires all in competition for control of the Middle East and the oil that powers modern warships and aircraft. Meanwhile, one of Elizabeth’s former classmates, Michael O’Connell, is working with his father for the Germans. Their goal: convince the Germans to send them back to Ireland to start a rebellion. The story unfolds with Elizabeth working against German support to Indian revolutionaries while her parents conduct espionage operations in Istanbul just before the start of World War I.
Available for Sale
Title: The Enigma of Treason
Publisher: Mission Point Press (2023)
Genre: Magical Realism/Young Adult
The entire Bankroft family are involved in Middle East operations at the start of World War I. Their complex operations throughout the Ottoman Empire result in a confrontation in Iran between the Bankroft and O’Connell families. The role of the mystic arts becomes central to the successes and failures in the story.
Available for Sale
Articles and Essays
- Collection and analytic challenges in Afghanistan (John Seeger and Lise Spargo) in Studies in Intelligence 2010 Vol. 54, No. 3
- Working with Surrogates: Building and Sustaining Lasting Networks in Studies in Intelligence 2014 Vol. 58 No. 2
- The Curious Case of T. E. Lawrence’s Military Sidearm in T.E. Lawrence Society Newsletter 2017. No. 117
- Watches of the OSS and SOE in Watches of Espionage website
Book Reviews
- The Horse Soldiers by Doug Stanton. Reviewed in Studies in Intelligence 2009 Vol. 53, No. 3
- Paired review of The Way of the Knife by Mark Mazetti and The Thistle and the Drone by Akbar Ahmed. Reviewed in Studies in Intelligence 2013 Vol. 57, No. 4
- The Last Warlord by Brian Glyn Williams. Reviewed in Studies in Intelligence 2014 Vol. 58, No. 2
- Russian Roulette by Giles Milton. Reviewed in Studies in Intelligence 2014 Vol. 58, No. 4
- Paired review of The Berlin to Baghdad Express by Sean McMeekin and The Kaiser’s Mission to Kabul by Jules Stewart. Reviewed in Studies in Intelligence 2015 Vol. 59. No. 4
- “Learning from World War II Special Operations” an expanded article/review of the following books: The Ariadne Objective by Wes Davis, Abducting a General by Patrick Leigh Fermor, Kidnap in Crete by Rick Stroud, and Natural Born Heroes by Christopher McDougall. The article was published in Studies in Intelligence 2015 Vol 59, No. 4
- The Devil’s Chessboard by David Talbot. Reviewed in Studies in Intelligence 2016 Vol 60, No. 3
- Paired review of Fighters in the Shadows by Robert Gildea and Eisenhower’s Guerrillas by Benjamin Jones. Reviewed in Studies in Intelligence Vol 60, No. 3
- “British Special Operations in World War II” – an expanded article/review of the following books: The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare by Damien Lewis, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare by Giles Milton, and Rogue Heroes by Ben Macintyre. Published in Studies in Intelligence 2017 Vol 61, No. 1
- Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Ernest Hemingway’s Secret Adventures by Nicholas Reynolds. Reviewed in Studies in Intelligence 2017 Vol. 61, No. 2
- “Two books on Special Operations Forces”. An expanded article/review of Oppose Any Foe: The Rise of America’s Special Operations Forces by Mark Moyar and Special Forces: A unique national asset by Mark D. Boyatt. Published in Studies in Intelligence 2017 Vol. 61 No. 3
- OSS Operation Black Mail: One woman’s covert war against the Imperial Japanese Army by Ann Todd. Reviewed in Studies in Intelligence 2017 Vol. 61 No. 3
- FOXTROT in Kandahar: A memoir of a CIA officer in Afghanistan at the inception of America’s Longest War by Duane Evans. Reviewed in Studies in Intelligence 2017. Vol. 61, No. 4
- 27 Articles by T. E. Lawrence. Reviewed in Studies in Intelligence 2018 Vol. 62. No. 1
- The London Cage: The secret history of Britain’s WWII Interrogation Centre by Helen Fry. Reviewed in Studies in Intelligence 2018 Vol. 62. No. 1
- A paired book review: Harpoon: Inside the Covert War against Terrorism’s Money Masters by Nitsana Darshan-Leitner and Samuel Katz and Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations by Ronen Bergman. Reviewed in Studies in Intelligence Vol 62, No. 3 September 2018.
- Freedom’s Laboratory: The Cold War Struggle for the Soul of Science by Audra J. Wolfe. Reviewed in Studies in Intelligence Vol 63, No. 2. June 2019.
- Surprise, Kill, Vanish. The Secret History of CIA Paramilitary Armies, Operators and Assassins by Annie Jacobsen. Reviewed in Studies in Intelligence Vol 63, No. 3. September 2019.
- Goliath: Why the West Doesn’t Win Wars and What We Need to Do About It by Sean McFate. Reviewed in Studies in Intelligence Vol. 63, No. 4. December 2019
- The Force: The Legendary Special Operations Unit and WWII’s Impossible Mission by David Saul. Reviewed in Studies in Intelligence Vol. 64, No. 2 June 2020
- Evaluating Resistance Operations in Western Europe during World War II. An expanded review/essay focusing on two books on WWII: The Resistance in Western Europe, 1940-1945 by Olivier Wieviorka and Hidden Armies of the Second World War: World War II Resistance Movements by Patrick G. Zander. Published in Studies in Intelligence Vol 65, No. 1. March 2021
- The Light of Days. The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler’s Ghettos by Judy Battalion. Reviewed in Studies in Intelligence Vol 65, No. 3. September 2021
- Underground Asia – Global Revolutionaries and the Assault on Empire by Tim Harper. Reviewed in Studies in Intelligence Vol. 65, No. 3. September 2021
- The American War in Afghanistan: A History by Carter Malakasian. Reviewed in Studies in Intelligence Vol. 65, No. 4. December 2021
- Paired review: Three Dangerous Men: Russia, China, Iran and the Rise of Irregular Warfare and Nonstate Warfare: The military methods of Guerrillas, Warlords, and Militias. Reviewed in Studies in Intelligence Vol. 66, No 2. June 2022
- Disruption: Inside the largest counterterrorism investigation in history by Aki Peritz. Reviewed in Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 66, No. 2 June 2022
Short Stories
Four published short stories on MEDIUM.COM. Two are mysteries set in Colonial New Mexico (“The Arrival of the Inquisitor” and “The Fever Dream of Brother Patrick”) and two are westerns set in New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico during the Mexican Revolution (“Tales from the Adventurers’ Club” and “Tales from the Adventurers’ Club II”).
