Manuscript Resurrection Part IV
I’ve written three other blogs about Moscow Airlift describing how the manuscript evolved over time and this is the fourth, but not the last. If I were to give them sub-titles, it would have been:
I – To rewrite, or not to rewrite an old manuscript, that is the question?
II – Houston, I have a problem and need to rethink this!
III – Bringing characters from prior books into the story to make it work
The heavy lifting of writing and re-writing the novel is now done and the big news is Penmore Press is going to publish it. The book should be out sometime in the first quarter of 2018. The “YAAAAAAYYYY TEAM” and the self pat on the back has already happened.
As I rewrote and edited sections, it dawned on me Moscow Airlift is a book about revenge. In the story, Josh is forced to confront the past. In Big Mother 40, he falls in love with Natalie who becomes his first wife and she is murdered in the first chapter of Render Harmless. Natalie was collateral damage because the real target was her father, a highly decorated Red Army officer. After World War II was over, decided he would rather live in America rather than under Stalin. To remind Soviet émigrés they were never out of reach of the Soviet Union, a selected few were being killed by KGB assassins.
Josh is sent to the dying Soviet Union as a set of fresh eyes to observe the instability and report back. He’s now in the belly of the beast and close, but oh-so-far from the organization who killed his wife. Josh has to resist the urge to try to find her killers knowing it will probably get him killed leaving his wife a widow and his kids fatherless.
Danielle Debenard and her father Jacques are also hell-bent on revenge. In Cherubs 2, both along with her younger sister Gabrielle are captured by the Pathet Lao and sent to a re-education camp. Three plus years later, only Danielle and her father get out. Danielle, now stationed in Moscow is working as an analyst for the Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure, the French CIA. Both want to find and kill the man who repeatedly raped Gabrielle.
There’s a third person wanting revenge. This individual is targeting an institution and wants changes to happen so the abuses of the past will not continue. I’ll let you read the book to find out who he is and what he does.
We’ll see how the editing and proofreading process goes. I should see it with the editor’s comments sometime next week. Net, net, Moscow Airlift has some new, and very interesting characters along with twists and turns to keep you reading. To stay true to Josh’s roots, early in the book, I managed to work in a hair raising combat rescue!
Marc Liebman
September 2017