Q + A

Sure. PIECES OF WOOD is a thrill-a-minute, high paced, action-adventure that is emotionally stirring and indeed quite controversial. It will challenge most readers to open their eyes not only to a world they never knew but to one they never thought possible. It will set most readers back in their chair, especially when they catch a glimpse of the magnitude of violence women have endured throughout recent times.

• Women throughout western society, both young and old, will connect with the brilliant and gutsy lead female character Michaelene Westgate, an FBI agent who, by way of her bold leadership and renegade determination, is easily seen as the genesis of the women’s rights movement in 20th Century, America.

• Women throughout Asian society will want to buy Pieces of Wood to put a smile on their faces, knowing that at long last, the rest of the world has finally come to realize the horror they and their families endured as Japan’s military, under orders, attempted to brutally obliterate the female population of their nation.

• Men will want to purchase Pieces of Wood for its high-paced, action-adventure, explosive drama, political intrigue and to take their own measure of two, different American warriors who fought two very different wars and their views on the changing roles of women in modern society.

I made a pledge to my mother Pauline when I was seven years old that I would one day unravel the mystery behind the disappearance of her youngest brother Billy Weber. He, his plane, his crew together with Jack Riley, their commanding officer “vanished without a trace” during the closing weeks of World War Two. Before she passed, I was able to share with my mom something she had been waiting her entire life to hear…something that in her heart she had always known… that her beloved brother lived well beyond the year he was declared, “KIA, killed in action.”

One afternoon at her California residence, mom and I took a seat on the edge of a Jacuzzi tub. There with a Revel model airplane, a purple sponge standing in for a remote tropical isle and the Jacuzzi jets aptly emulating the dramatic ocean currents, I was able to demonstrate to my mother exactly how and where World War Two ended for Jack and Billy and from that point, how the next ten years of their lives together, unfolded.

(Please note that this title will not be available for a publisher’s review until the fall of 2020)

Yes. PIECES OF WOOD is filled with a litany of unique content. Here are three examples:

• At but one of the refractory oven sites in which an estimated five thousand, sexually abused women and young boys were destroyed by the hand of Japanese Imperialism that swept across half the globe, comes the startling realization that it was just one of a number of such sites.

• Readers concerned with the idiom that history repeats itself will see how in real life, one religion in the 20th Century, twisted and abused, led the people of Japan to accept the brutal destruction of tens of millions of innocent human lives — those who stood in their way of global domination.

• The reader will gain a unique insight into the war waged to this day against women as told by way of a conversation held between two men who endured traditional combat conditions.

• From the beaches of North Carolina to downtown Chicago… to Micronesia, Malaysia, China, the former Soviet Union, and across to Switzerland, an array of women both young and old from wide-ranging social backgrounds, hold fast to that indomitable female spirit as each confronts “war” on various battlefields amidst its innumerable pretexts.

• Although the characters in this novel are fictional, there are no flights of fantasy. The settings and events described throughout Pieces of Wood are in every sense, far too real.

The trajectory of Nelson DeMille’s, “The Quest” is similar to Pieces of Wood. I read Mr. DeMille’s novel “Charm School,” during my post-grad years. It picked me up and sat me down behind the wheel of his introductory character as he drove through the backroads of the former Soviet Union. Like DeMille and the first few works of Tom Clancy, I try to dig down deep beyond the conscious level of the prospective reader and send their spirit on an adventure like no other. To such ends, I strive to provide real-life history lessons wrapped in adventure, in a highly entertaining and easily digestible fashion.

Works involving magic, science fiction, or fantasy are most unlike mine. In my view, there are more than a thousand years of life lessons — the real kind — from which those living today can draw to enrich their lives. Perusing one of my works or those of Mr. DeMille’s, makes the boring history lessons many of us had to sit through during our high school days, resonate with genuine feeling and compassion. The lives of real people matter, not those of sorcerers and gargoyles.

 Yes. I traveled extensively throughout the United States as a guest lecturer visiting military bases, universities, and veteran’s affairs organizations as an expert on the subject of MIA/POWs. I was paid for the privilege of providing my insights and viewpoints to audiences ranging from intimate settings of fifty attendees, to filling auditoriums seating four hundred guests.