ABOUT THE BOOKS
GIBRALTAR STATION — A Novel
Jack Taylor, a freshly retired 42 year old U.S. Army MSgt, arrives in Gibraltar and takes up residence as an expat retiree. Informed his military pension won’t be enough to live on, thereby jeopardizing his Gibraltar residence permit, Jack is open to recruitment efforts by organizations that hire paramilitary contractors. Capitalizing on the skills he acquired during his military career as a special forces operative, Jack—working alone or with others—takes on assignments ranging from providing security services to undertaking extraction ops of high value individuals.
The CIA station chief in Gibraltar, along with agents of MI-5 and MI-6, soon begin to rely on Jack’s skills. Wishing to provide Jack a socially acceptable cover for his occasional covert operations they pull strings to secure for Jack a private investigator’s license as well as a concealed weapons permit. Jack’s debut as a bonafide private detective cements his local reputation as a resourceful person ready to assist, but he knows those who value his covert operational skills will not easily cut him loose.
Damascus: Dateline 1956 — An Alan Harper Novel
On October 30th, 1956, a CIA-sponsored coup (code-named “Operation Straggle”) was to take place in Damascus with the support of the Syrian military. The operation was cancelled on October 29th, one day before the planned coup, after Israel, the British and the French launched attacks on the Suez Canal. History refers to these events as “The Suez Crisis”, and it provoked the Syrian military into refusing to go along with the coup. Two weeks later, the Soviet Union and Syria signed a Pact in which the Soviets promised Syria heavy weapons and other military support in exchange for more political and foreign policy influence.
Alarmed by these events, and suffering an involuntary drawdown of CIA personnel in Damascus, Beirut’s CIA station chief sends two covert operatives into Syria a week later to monitor a Soviet intelligence team that had arrived in Damascus, ostensibly to implement the terms of the Pact. Alan Harper, posing as a freelance investigative reporter, and Anne Small, posing as his Arabic-speaking interpreter, soon discovered the real objective of the Soviet team.
The action is fast-paced as Harper and Anne, at great risk to themselves, fend off the Syrian secret police, a Soviet hit squad, and the Soviet intelligence team itself, in their attempt to disrupt the Soviet operation.
THE DJERBA ASSIGNMENT — A JACK TAYLOR NOVEL
Jack Taylor, a retired U.S. Army MSgt now living in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar and working as a private investigator, is called upon to investigate a kidnapping that has taken place on the Tunisian island of Djerba. As he tracks down the perpetrators, he discovers the abduction of the young woman was not simply a local crime, but one involving a European criminal gang as well as persons linked to a foreign government. The complicated pursuit of the abducted woman leads Jack from the island of Djerba to the island of Malta and ultimately to Sicily.
Jack is obliged to return to the island of Djerba almost immediately following the resolution of the kidnapping, but this time as part of a CIA-sponsored paramilitary force tasked with rescuing a U.S. Army covert signals team—a mission where his previous career as a special forces operator is once again put to the test. Then, back in Gibraltar, Jack is promptly recruited by Britain’s MI-5 to assist in exposing an espionage effort meant to weaken the Territory’s ties with Great Britain.
