Current Works in Process
It is time for a quick overview of what’s still in my laptop that are a work in process or put another way, books to be written and published. Here’s the list and the status.
The Simushir Island Incident. It is scheduled to be published by Penmore Press later this year and is the last book in the Josh Haman series.
Gold and Silver Wings – Tales from Three Generation of Military Aviators. It is a collection of stories from my father’s, my son’s and my aviation careers that don’t appear in official reports. Some of the stories will make you smile or laugh, some will make you cry and others you’ll wonder what were they thinking. The first draft of the manuscript has been completed and the book proposal and is with a literary agency who has agreed to represent it.
Flight of the Pawnee, MANPADS, The Ass’m Draggin’, and Strawberry 9. These four books comprise a new contemporary counterterrorism/espionage series that take place starting in 2015 with Derek Almer as the main character. The first novel – Flight of the Pawnee – is ready to send to a publisher and I’m currently editing MANPADS. It will take one or two more passes before it is “finished.” The Ass’m Draggin’ and Strawberry 9 are just concepts now and it would take me two to three months to write a first draft and three more to polish either one into a manuscript that could go to a publisher. The series is with the same agency that has Gold and Silver Wings.
Retribution. It’s the story of four men – an American Air Force pilot; a German who escaped Nazi Germany in the thirties; a wanted Nazi war criminal; and Soviet NKVD officer – and how their lives slowly intertwine. The manuscript is close to being ready to go to a publisher.
Red Star of Death. The Cuban intelligence agency, the CIA and the Mossad want to entice Janet Pulaski out of her quiet retirement and the FBI wants to put her in jail. She finds a cause to believe in so she can again, ride off into the sunset. Ditto the status of Retribution.
Hannenkam and Outsourced haven’t passed beyond the concept stage. The title for Hannenkam comes from one of the major races on the Alpine Skiing World Cup Championship series and is a novel about an American ski racer with Olympic dreams. He’s dating an Austrian ski racer who’s father has an ugly past. Outsourced will be a novel about a consultant advising a client during the provider selection process. The hero has to deal with an unethical competitor, a corrupt procurement director, hidden agendas of corporate executives and the sales tactics used by the providers. Some are offbeat, some shady and some are outright dumb.
So that’s current list of eight and should keep me busy over the next few years.
Marc Liebman
August 2018