This is my first novel. When it debuted in September 2001, right on the heels of 9/11, it was ranked as one of the best thriller debuts by Publisher's Weekly and became a Booksense Pick as Best Thriller and Suspense. It was one of the first thrillers to feature the extremely secretive Special Activities Division of the CIA, the single most elite unit in the US Special Operations arsenal. What readers loved about it then, and now, as it still sells 18 years later, was first of all the realism in tactics, tradecraft and fighting. This is old hat now with most competent thriller writers spending time getting every exacting detail about those things right. 18 years ago that was not common. We readers were used to books with silenced revolvers, Glocks with safety catches, and tradecraft using a woman's compact mirror (remember those?) to peek around corners with. Fellow authors like Barry Eisler, David Morrell, Gayle Lynds, Grant Blackwood, Harley Jane Kozak and many others have been kind enough to thank me for sharing my technical expertise over the years in their excellent fiction.The second thing readers resonated with was the depth of insight into the psychology of special operators, and learning about the fine line between psychopathy/sociopathy and the ice-cold calculation necessary in a cutting edge special operator. I've spent most of my adult life researching and teaching these mental aspects for close combat, and I count students in elite units all over the world. Besides my own work and research, I consulted during the writing of this novel with psychologists and psychiatrists from the CIA, NASA, JSOC, and national police academies in three different countries, as well as with friends from Tier One Units in the US and NATO structure.That research, and the novel that emerged from it, has held up well.Enjoy this exploration into the very dark mind of Jonny Maxwell, a superstar in DOMINANCE RAIN, an element of the Special Activities Division, and the man who must hunt him to the death, his friend and war-brother Dale Miller.
advertisement