Snippet One, Alone and Unafraid

“That’s him.” Amos Black was sitting in the center back seat of the black HiLux, with Bryan and Hassan crowding him on each side. Bryan was there to quietly kill Black as soon as he showed any sign of treachery. Hassan was there to help coordinate with the team of Hussein Ali’s finest that was running overwatch. Hussein Ali had suggested that his boys should take this, but I’d declined, and Mike had backed me up. This was our hit, for very special reasons. The man Black had fingered looked nondescript as hell, especially in southern Iraq. Short, skinny, short black hair, neatly trimmed beard, black dishdasha, talking on a cell phone. There was nothing in his appearance to suggest that he was anything special. Not that that was in any way odd in this strange, shadowy war. Some of the nastiest opponents were the ones who looked like frail businessmen. And according to Black, this guy was one of the top commanders of the Abdul Qadir Brigade, a sub-unit of the Islamic State in Iraq and as-Sham. Right now, this skinny, inoffensive-looking motherfucker was walking down a still-crowded street in a primarily Sunni part of Basra. There weren’t a

Well, It’s Official

With the recent events in Iraq, as ISIS takes city after city and the Iraqi Army folds like a cheap suit, Hunting in the Shadows and Alone and Unafraid have solidly moved from “speculative fiction” into “alternate history.”  It’s a risk that an author takes, writing fictional stories in real-world conflict zones, that events might very well overtake the story.  In this case, they have, as a couple of my assumptions in setting up the story have proven erroneous: I figured ISIS would focus more on Syria until Assad was overthrown, and that the IA would show a little bit more spine than it has. Oh, well.  That’s why it’s fiction.  I’ll still push forward based on the story so far; for one thing, I’m not throwing out 80k words worth of work.  It’s still a good story, it’s just happening in a world that’s not quite ours…

Updates and Some Idea of the Future

Wow, it’s been a long time since I updated this page.  Sorry about that. So, I’m presently banging away at Alone and Unafraid, the third Praetorian novel.  Put simply, it’s being something of a bear.  While I’m a significant part of the way done, it’s not done yet, and it’s probably going to require some serious rewrites.  It is coming, eventually. That said, I’ve got three more Jed Horn stories on the horizon, one of which is a prequel to A Silver Cross and a Winchester, revealing Jed’s introduction to the Order.  The other two come after Silver Cross.  There’s a haunted sanitarium, an age-old evil that’s claimed the lives of twenty Hunters over the last century, and a few other things that go bump in the night. The Praetorian series has taken a turn away from the direction I thought it would, and that’s, I think, for the better.  Provided I get Alone and Unafraid done, we’ll see stories coming up in the Tri-Border Area of South America, Mexico, Nigeria, Eastern Europe (I foresee a long-standing feud between the Praetorians and the SVD/Mafiya), and possibly Central Asia somewhere. There’s also a stand-alone about fighting Malay pirates that I’ll admit

Book Review: The First Bayonet

So, I finally got around to my friend Steven Hildreth’s first novel, The First Bayonet.  I’ve got to say, it’s a good read.  Not as kinetic as some of them out there, but it’s tense, well-researched, and the fights that are in it are pretty well done. Ben Williams is former Delta turned contractor, who gets a contract to extract a dissident from an Egyptian prison.  The book is set in 2006, before the recent revolution and ensuing unrest in Egypt, so the antagonists are part of Mubarak’s security apparatus.  Hildreth doesn’t shy away from the Egyptian military’s human rights record, and though the Muslim Brotherhood doesn’t make an appearance, it illustrates a good deal of why so many students rose up in 2012. Williams infiltrates the prison, where we get to see some of the more egregious brutality of the Egyptian authorities.  As Williams plans and executes his breakout, Egyptian security types start to die, and the book turns into a personal contest between Williams and the Egyptian officer who is hunting him. There’s a lot of good stuff in this book, and Hildreth’s definitely a promising author.  What cons there are are nitpicks, nothing more.  Overall, a solid

It’s Alive!

Well, sort of.  Amazon is still being a little screwy; the Kindle version isn’t showing up on searches or my author page, though it was there last night.  But, you can now order A Silver Cross and a Winchester, even though the system is being a little jankety at the moment. Paperback is here: http://www.amazon.com/Silver-Cross-Winchester-Peter-Nealen/dp/1492834009/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1383153465&sr=8-5&keywords=peter+nealen Kindle is here: http://www.amazon.com/Silver-Cross-Winchester-Peter-Nealen-ebook/dp/B00GAAQE2C/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1383105199&sr=8-6&keywords=peter+nealen It is on Smashwords, and is pending review for the Premium catalog.  Once it clears that, it’ll be on Nook and Apple in a few weeks.

Book Review: Swords of Exodus

I’ve been waiting for this book ever since I first finished Dead Six.  If you haven’t read Dead Six, go do so.  Now.  I’ll wait. Pretty badass, isn’t it?  Well, Swords of Exodus ratchets things up a notch. It has been about a year since Dead Six came to a close.  Lorenzo gets pulled out of retirement, first to rescue Valentine from a black site prison (where Val is getting his mind screwed with even more than usual), then to rescue his brother Bob from Sala Jihan, the Pale Man.  Things do not go according to plan. The action is, in places, even more intense than in Dead Six.  There are full-bore, company-level assaults going on in this book.  Both Larry and Mike know their weapons handling, and the tactics are depicted well.  Mike’s an EOD tech and a combat vet, and while Larry may not have been military, he’s been immersed in the gun culture for a long, long, time, and has a lot of friends who have worn the green at some point. The book is more than a series of firefights, of course.  Val is, if anything, even more messed up than he was before, and is