Underdogs Make the Best Characters

I recently wrote about the type of novel characters I like for a new books site, Shepherd. In “The Best Novels about Underdogs on a Doomed Mission,” I give you the damned and the screwed who just won’t give in.

I’ve always been drawn to characters who are stuck between two worlds and in over their heads with a plan that’s doomed to fail, but they stick with it anyway. They often don’t know exactly what they’re doing, but they believe in making the effort. Those are the main characters in all my books, really, whether the story’s set in WWII or present-day Oregon. The Losing Role is a prime example.

Shepherd (in beta) helps readers find the books they like in a new way. They aim to “create an experience like wandering around your favorite bookstore but reimagined for the online world.” To get there, they’re asking authors to share their favorite books grouped by themes they’re passionate about. Sounds like a plan to me, so when Shepherd’s founder Ben Fox came asking, I was happy to oblige.

What books did I choose? There are classics and a couple you might not know but could love. And the characters? There’s young Mattie Ross in Charles Portis’ True Grit. Mattie has one of the best voices in fiction. She’s just fourteen when a coward shoots her dad dead and takes his horse and $150. But Mattie’s not going to let that go unpunished. Then there’s burned-out British agent Alec Leamas in The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, and a real-life German spy who resisted Hitler all on his own, and more. Some aren’t as noble, such as Tom Ripley in Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley, but all mean well in their own minds.

Check out the rest of the books and characters here.

Overdue Update and a Big Book Sale

It’s been a long road surviving the pandemic and all the other things that made it worse, but we’re starting to see the end of this dark tunnel. Finally. I hope you’re all doing all right, staying healthy, and getting by in the best ways you can. 

View fullsize

I admit it: I’ve done a lousy job sending out any updates in this newsletter over the last eleven months. I’ve been hibernating like all of us. Missing my favorite bars and restaurants, bookstores and live music. Dying to play soccer again and watch it in person. Grieving, but hoping. I grew a mustache, which turned into a scruffy beard. 

Still, I’ve been getting lots of writing done. I’ve completed two new novels, both different from what I’ve done before, and I’m excited about their potential.

Meanwhile, book #4 in my Kaspar Brothers series has been finished for some time. The working title is Code Word: Wendelin. It’s set behind the Iron Curtain in 1949 as Max Kaspar attempts to rescue his brother Harry from a secret operation gone mysteriously awry. More on that sooner than later, hopefully. Also, a big psychological thriller I translated is coming out this spring: Seat 7A by bestselling German author Sebastian Fitzek. This story is a wild ride. If you don’t love flying, you might read this one before we all start flying again.

Speaking of the Kaspar Brothers, I’d like to tell you about a big new push to get the existing series to more readers. This week the ebook version of book #1, The Losing Role, is going on sale for only 99 cents in the US and similar in other markets. Plus it has a great newer cover. Click here to get a copy.

At the same time, my publisher of books #2 and #3, Liberated and Lost Kin, is discounting those ebooks to $1.99 in the US and hopefully other markets later. The whole promotion will last into springtime. If you haven’t read the series, this is a great way to try them out. And each book works as a standalone story so don’t feel you have to read them in order.

That’s it for now. Stay healthy and keep going, because we’re nearly there. Screw you, Covid!

PS: This post is from my newsletter. You can always join my mailing list for the latest.

New Cover for The Losing Role: A Novel

I’m excited to announce a great new cover for the ebook and print versions of my novel The Losing Role.

The first release in my Kaspar Brothers series, The Losing Role tells the story of a struggling German actor, Max Kaspar, who’s forced to impersonate an enemy American officer during WW2’s bloody Battle of the Bulge. It’s also based on real-life events. More about the book here. 

The new cover was designed by the talented Erin Seaward-Hiatt, who also did the covers for my novel The Preserve and my novella Rain Down. The ebook cover is out now, and a new print version is coming soon. 

This spring marks the 10th anniversary of the book’s initial release. Happy Anniversary, Max!

View fullsize

Help Local Indie Bookstores Survive the Covid-19 Crisis

These are strange and scary times. Things suck right now. We need diversions, and stories help us cope. But we can only binge-watch so much Netflix. 

Luckily, we have books. Stories in book form are the perfect escape. They take you to another world while keeping you away from all the bad news. 

Unfortunately, publishers, authors and especially local independent bookstores are facing unimaginable challenges right now. So if you’re thinking about buying a book, there are great ways to do so while helping out your local booksellers.

Order directly from your local bookstores. Most are shipping fast and offering curbside pickup. 

IndieBound lets you find the books you love at your local bookstores, all in one place. Here in Portland, my nearby booksellers include Powell’s, Broadway Books and many others. Even Barnes & Noble could use a little love as the only nationwide bricks-and-mortar bookstore chain left. 

Or consider ordering from Bookshop.org. This committed and encouraging new online retailer lets you shop for books and financially support local bookstores at the same time. It’s a great way to give back to the book community. Many indie bookstores are participating affiliates, as are authors like me. Here are my books on Bookshop. They've already raised nearly 400k for local bookstores and are just getting started. 

***

Hang in there, everyone. We have gotten through major crises before, and we will get through this. I know because I’ve read it in books. 

I for one believe we’ve been given a huge opportunity to create a better world. Hopefully we can seize it. 

The Stories Behind the Stories (2010-2020)

View fullsize

As we reach the end of the decade, I realized that all of my novels were (finally) published in these last ten years, most in the last five. I'll toast to that! It’s been a long road getting there.

Over those years I've written posts and articles about the real-life events behind each of my historical novels. I want to share them with you here, all in one place:

The Preserve: A Novel (2019):
"One Man’s War: Fact and Fiction in The Preserve"
"General Douglas MacArthur: A Life of (Alleged) Conspiracies"

Lost Kin: A Novel (2016):
"The True Yet Unknown Tragedy in Lost Kin: A Novel"

Liberated: A Novel of Germany, 1945 (2014):
"Dodge City, Germany: Portland Author Digs into Little-known Corner of World War II History"
"The Wild West of Occupied Germany, 1945"

Under False Flags (2014):
"War as a Deadly Swindle"

The Losing Role (2010):
"Noir and War Tell the Same Grim Tale"
"The True Story That Inspired The Losing Role"
"75 Years Ago: The Doomed German Spy Mission in the Battle of the Bulge"

There's more on this site, but these are the main ones. Happy reading, and happy new decade!

***

PS: I’ve you’d like to receive stories like these in the next decade, please consider signing up for my newsletter.

75 Years Ago: The Doomed German Spy Mission in the Battle of the Bulge

Seventy-five years ago, on December 16, the Battle of the Bulge began. Many don’t know about a doomed spy mission that Hitler had devised for his surprise Ardennes Offensive. Under the code name Greif, German soldiers who could speak English were trained and equipped to impersonate American troops behind the enemy lines, where they would wreak havoc and secure depots and bridges in advance of the main assault.

View fullsize

Planet news /TopFoto

The German offensive caught American troops resting in Belgium’s forested Ardennes region completely off guard, and in the bloody chaos the rumor quickly spread that the American impersonators were crack enemy terrorists out to kidnap or kill US General Eisenhower, commander of the Allied Forces.

The lore of German agents impersonating American soldiers reemerged in films, fiction and even history books as a frightening and deadly ploy carried out with skill and cunning. The commander, SS Lieutenant Colonel Otto Skorzeny, already had an overhyped daredevil’s reputation that only fueled the legend.

The reality was completely different, though. The Germans had hastily put together units of English-speaking soldiers using whatever troops and materiel they could gather. The men came from all branches of the German military and possibly included civilians. The ones who spoke English best had lived in America or Britain, but these numbered very few.

Many of the English speakers had been sailors and naive students and were far from ideal soldiers let alone crack terrorists. One, Otto Struller, had been a professional ballet dancer, and some had occupations such as waiter or writer. Some appear to have been misled about the mission, and couldn’t back out. At least one was shot for a breach of secrecy.

The planning and training were slapdash, the mission desperate, its chances slim. Skorzeny and his officers placed the better English speakers into a special commando unit, Einheit Stielau. They were sent out in captured American jeeps to infiltrate the US lines, and managed to confuse (already bewildered) US troops by switching signs, passing along bogus info, and committing sabotage.

The Americans captured some of the Stielau men and promptly shot them by firing squad, including Struller. As the main German offensive sputtered, Skorzeny called off Operation Greif. If anything, the commando mission helped the Americans, since those wild rumors about cutthroat Germans in GI uniform gunning for Eisenhower only served to keep American counterintelligence alert and strengthen the troops’ rattled resolve.

In 1947, the Allies’ Dachau Trials were supposed to make an example of the infamous Skorzeny and his officers for running a villainous ruse that ran counter to the so-called rules of war, but the defense brought in Allied officers who had to admit they’d been running similar special missions. Skorzeny and all of the defendants were acquitted. Not cool. The little guy gets screwed again while the bigshot walks.

If you want to geek out on this, there’s a fellow in Holland named Wolfgang Stienes who’s devoted his spare time to discovering the identities of some of those doomed Germans posing as Americans. It’s no easy task, since extant records are tough to find and many of them confusing.

Most of it is in German, here: https://www.oorlogsslachtoffers.nl/greif1944/#

There’s some in English, here: https://www.tracesofwar.com/themes/5892/Operation-Greif.html

Herr Stienes contacted me a while back with a surprise. He was able to identify the two captured Greif men on the photo above, which is also the cover for my novel The Losing Role (2010). The photo’s true origin is a mystery even to its copyright holder, Planet News/TopFoto, and the two prisoners previously unknown. They are:

Obergefreiter Rolf Meyer alias 2nd Lt. Sammy Rosner

Leutnant zur See Günther Schilz alias Corporal John Weller

To me, this tale reveals the various traps involving language and cultural differences in spy operations. But more than that, it speaks loads about the utter absurdity and insanity of war.

The mission features in The Losing Role (2010), is described in my nonfiction Kindle Single Sitting Ducks (2011), and it also plays a role in my later novel Under False Flags (2014). Give them a read for more on this.

***

Some of this borrows from an earlier post, “The True Story that Inspired The Losing Role,” as well as the Afterword to The Losing Role.