Pre-Orders of Under False Flags Now Shipping

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Get it early! Word has it that pre-orders of Under False Flags: A Novel are now arriving from Amazon and Barnes & Noble in advance of its September 2 release in stores. Pre-order at Powell's Books (my hometown bookstore), Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Indiebound (for your local bookstore), and others. More links here, including the audiobook version also out September 2. The ebook version should follow soon this fall.

In Under False Flags, the relentless bloodbath of World War II has become a treacherous prison for both American GI Wendell Lett and German Navy seaman Holger Frings. Lett’s Belgian lover Heloise offers him deliverance from war, but soon Lett is forced into a reckless false flag mission at the same time that Frings must join a similar German operation just as deadly.

The two enemies' fates collide in December 1944 during the bloody Battle of the Bulge. When Lett and Frings find themselves stranded together, they decide to desert and team up to help Lett find his way back to his Heloise in her war-ravaged town. Under False Flags is a gritty war tale that turns conventional notions of heroism and honor on their head.

Published by Yucca Publishing, a new imprint of Skyhorse Publishing. 

Translation Release Announced: Until the Debt is Paid

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I'm pleased to report that my translation of Alexander Hartung's bestselling crime thriller Until the Debt is Paid is scheduled for release this November. Here's a summary:

Berlin detective Jan Tommen expected to wake up with a hangover—not a murder charge. But a well-known judge has been brutally killed and hard evidence places Jan at the crime scene. When disturbing gaps in Jan’s memory make finding an alibi impossible, the case against him looks open and shut.

Faced with life on the inside, Jan flees police custody to take refuge with an old friend deeply enmeshed in the capital’s seedy underworld. Hampered by a citywide manhunt, Jan soon finds that investigating leads while eluding capture isn’t easy. Before long, he’s relying on a team of misfits for help, including an icy blonde medical examiner and a brilliant but reclusive computer whiz.

When a lucky break leads Jan to connect the murders to a heinous trafficking ring, the team risks it all to find answers. Meanwhile, the body count continues to rise and the police department starts to close in. Desperate to prove his innocence, Jan must identify the true killer—before his time finally runs out.

Alexander Hartung lives in his hometown of Mannheim, Germany, with his wife and young son. The original German version is titled Bis alle Schuld beglichen.

Published by AmazonCrossing, Until the Debt is Paid is scheduled for paperback, ebook, and audiobook versions. Find details for pre-ordering the book on the Translation page.

Ending Soon: Goodreads Giveaway of The Losing Role

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UPDATE, July 2: Congrats to the winners!: Debora, Catherine, Kristi, Stacey, and Doreen. Look for the books in the mail soon. 

The Goodreads giveaway of The Losing Role ends July 2. I’m giving away five paperback copies. While you're on Goodreads, take a good look around. It's a great site for discovering new and old reads.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Losing Role by Steve Anderson

The Losing Role

by Steve Anderson

Giveaway ends July 02, 2014.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

The Losing Role is a prequel to the second release coming in November: Liberated: A Novel of Germany, 1945. Max Kaspar, the main character in The Losing Role, is the older brother of US Army Captain Harry Kaspar in Liberated. 

Throwback Movie Review: War, Soccer, and Victory (1981)

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As I write this, the 2014 World Cup is fully overwhelming my brain. It also reminds me of one of the sparks, or at least guilty pleasures, for the working adult geek that I have become. It came at a crucial time, combining my WWII- and soccer-obsessed dorkiness into one raging volley. I’m talking about the movie Victory, of course.  

Source: Movieposter.com. 

I date myself here, so some cringeworthy context is in order. Up until about 1978-9, my preteen self was, on the inside at least, a shy and bookish kid who was happy alone in his room reading history books about the turbulent 1930s and 40s and building models of tanks and planes, not worrying a bit about nightmares or all that paint thinner going to my head. Then, practically on a dime, my perfectly dorky world mutated. 

My body changed. I was suddenly athletic. And I discovered soccer. Devouring books and perfecting models alone soon surrendered to endless soccer playing, with older buddies from the neighborhood, alone if I had to, eventually with top youth clubs. When we weren’t playing, we’d take the downtown bus to watch the Portland Timbers of the North American Soccer League in what was then Civic Stadium with hard Astroturf thinner than a front door mat. 

My new obsession was complete. Then, in 1981, came Victory (also titled Escape to Victory). 

It was the ideal convergence. Set during World War II, the story involved a team of Allied POWs forced to play an unbeatable German Fussball team in Paris as a Nazi propaganda stunt. As these stories go, the Allied team was a rag-tag bunch thrown together from the nations of the Allies, training and scraping along at a POW camp. In a convoluted plot, the POW team lands on the idea of using the big match to escape, at halftime. But as they play on they (spoiler alert!) decide to forgo the escape and see the game through to the end, believing they can beat the Nazis, hindering enemy propaganda and winning back their pride—but inviting retribution.

It had the WWII setting and the historic soccer, but, most of all: Famous players of the late 1970s appeared. There was this gifted little player who looked a lot like Pelé, and it was! English star Bobby Moore and the great Argentinian Osvaldo Ardiles played for the good guys, and Werner Roth from the NY Cosmos led the dastardly Third Reich side. Pelé does his tricks and cracks wise. In the big game, Ardiles does a crafty rainbow flick over a Nazi defender. For the money shot, Pelé hits his trademark bicycle kick right on target. Directing the movie was American legend John Huston. Sports movies rarely get players’ game movements and flow right, but Huston and team do an admirable job, helped along by those star players.

Playing alongside the star footballers were top-draw movie stars Sylvester Stallone, Michael Caine, and the Swede Max von Sydow as the German POW camp Kommandant (fresh off his role as Emperor Ming the Merciless in the campy Flash Gordon). The actors did what they did best. In match close-ups, Michael Caine was shot from the waist-up running the midfield. And there was Stallone in the net, making the crucial saves. Through that convoluted plot, the Allied team needed Stallone’s character along for the escape, so they concocted a way to put the Yank in goal, a scheme which involved breaking the arm of the poor starting British keeper to make it look like an accident. The movie also needed the American for box office, of course. Stallone didn’t move like a keeper, but that was the point. He was Stallone. The movie's IMDB page has good trivia and goofs, if you’re that dorky.

In Hollywood-speak, it's basically The Great Escape meets The Longest Yard. The story was unbelievable, and the feel was kind of stereotypically heroic, almost a throwback to 1940s tales. I’m pretty sure it flopped in the states. It certainly did not with me—even if I pretended it did, and surely did not with those rare (back then) American soccer diehards who didn’t know D-Day from the Ardennes Offensive.

If only they had made a sequel, in which, say, the underdog US team not only beats England in the 1950 World Cup, but goes on to win the whole thing. But that would be even more improbable than the plot of Victory—they would have had to move it to about the year 2026 for it be believable. Then again, we've come a hell of a long way since 1981. 

 

Find the Latest on New Facebook Page

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I've launched a new Facebook Page in advance of the new fall novel releases, Under False Flags and Liberated. Look for news and articles carried over from this website and other social sites as well as original posts. 

If you're so inclined, please visit the Facebook Page, give it a like, pass it on, and thank you.

Here's the full link: http://www.facebook.com/SteveAndersonAuthor

Here are other current places I can be found online:

Goodreads
Twitter
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