Jinxed

This novel follows the story of Alice and Redmond Gilraine from Achill Island to London, Brisbane and Rochester, New York and back to Achill. It chronicles their adventures, tragedies and joys. This collection of characters live ordinary lives illuminated by love of family, stoic resilience in the face of misfortune and a grounded sense of place.  It focuses on the challenges the family overcomes in coping with emigration, adoption, loneliness and depression. Lily’s life-search mirrors the problems adopted people have in accessing their roots, heredity and medical history. Above all, the tale celebrates the indomitable spirit and zest for life of an Irish family abroad.

Expendable Soldiers 2

It’s 1942 and the Second World War’s Pacific Theatre has started. John Knight and his soldier colleagues have escaped being prisoners-of-war of the Japanese. They established a Coastwatcher network who report on the Japanese from the islands of New Guinea.Since the war started, John’s group of part-time soldiers have transformed into an effective group of killers. The group operates from a stolen Japanese gunboat and engage the Japanese on both land and sea while they continue to rescue people from the clutches of the advancing Japanese army.The group’s unlikely successes have been recognised and they now also work with the army’s special forces directly engaging the Japanese in high-risk missions behind enemy lines. John knows that capture by the Japanese means certain death.On the battlefield, the Japanese receive no quarter and John’s group expect none from the Japanese. It is a desperate time and no one is playing by the gentleman’s rules of war.John and his group have survived through stealth, innovation and ruthless efficiency but is that enough to survive the imminent invasion of New Guinea’s capital? John’s group need the luck of the Irish if they are to survive the war.This book is a sequel to the highly successful book, Expendable Soldiers: Invasion.

Death by DNA

Tom O’Dell is rural Wisconsin dairy veterinarian who has his own practice. With the emergence of worldwide unexplained instantaneous mass animal deaths, Tom is drafted by the USDA to be a CDC trained investigator and help protect the agricultural economy from devastation. Trained at CDC headquarters in Atlanta, he becomes part of a worldwide team of scientists to find a cause of these deaths.The team’s first cases involve the death of 220 cows and heifer calves in a herd of free range beef cattle grazing on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, where only the bulls and steers are untouched. There they meet an ancient Lakota Sioux shaman whose dreams and visions have predicted the arrival of a ‘Destroyer’, who will bring on worldwide Armageddon. The team is commissioned by the old man to find this destroyer of life and that leads them on a worldwide manhunt.They team up with French investigators from the prestigious Pasteur Institute and an old Parisian Nazi hunter. The man depicted in the old Indian’s journals is discovered to be Wilheim Berhetzel, a Nazi war criminal, thought to be long-dead in a post-war plane crash into a Swiss mountainside. His death camp experiments to discover a fountain of youth drug and a lethal death ray weapon becomes his obsession, which he continues to perfect in the secluded rainforests of Argentina. He emerges on the world stage again during his assassination attempt on the President of France with his perfected weapon. The team’s pursuit leads them through Europe and back to South America where they barely escape Berhetzel’s attempt to kill them. The Nazi then disappears only to reappear in the United States with designs of overthrowing the government with mass extermination of the country's leaders at the presidential inauguration ceremony.

Anna Minim and the Conundrum

The electric storm took two weeks to encircle earth. Only children and the elderly survived its wrath. And so it was that the children and grandparents of the world realised they had to look after themselves, alone. Anna joins Tommy on an adventure that takes them a great deal further than they could ever have imagined, deep into the bowels of the earth, away from the reach of the devastating storm above, but into the mystery and danger that lies in wait below. Anna tells her story as the conundrum unfolds: "My torch had gone out but the image stayed, seemingly right in front of me as I stood transfixed in the cave. I could hear Tommy calling my name but I couldn't shout back. I could do nothing. I felt rigid and totally helpless. It pulled and I followed. I had no choice."

A Call of Nature

In the heartland of Africa, a tale unfolds—a captivating narrative of adventure, compassion, and love amidst a world plagued by profound inhumanity and staggering loss. As a water driller, Martin witnesses the ruthless assault on an African tribal village, his swift choices in those pivotal moments not only save his own life but also rescue a young woman from the clutches of danger.Guided by a compass bearing, they embark on a treacherous journey through the untamed bush, where the young woman, bearing the scars of a cruel assault, endures the arduous trek with unwavering determination. On their harrowing path, an unexpected revelation intertwines with the forces of nature, granting them solace and unveiling a discovery that transcends a lifetime.Having fulfilled his promise to ensure the young woman’s safety and well-being, Martin finds himself thrust into turmoil by an overzealous administrator, prompting him to abandon his previous pursuits and return home, seeking solace in retirement.Yet, as ennui sets in and with no news from his injured companion, Martin yearns for a new challenge. Seizing the opportunity, he contacts the archaeology department of a nearby university, sharing the details of his remarkable African discovery and opening a new chapter in his life. His return to Africa sets in motion a series of events with profound consequences, leading to an outcome beyond his wildest imagination. An article in a South African newspaper breathes life back into Martin’s connection with his young companion. Compelled to rekindle their acquaintance, he impulsively boards a flight to rural South Africa.Though physically healed and sheltered by her loving parents, the young woman remains emotionally scarred. Martin recognizes that the promise he made to himself months ago remains unfulfilled, propelling him on yet another journey—one that unfolds amidst the tapestry of love and loss.

Zhetybay

A time of change. The changes had already occurred, so perhaps further changes were needed? A step out into a world where lifestyles and cultures had been dictated long ago and nothing had really changed at all.

For the people it was simply a matter of survival and they had perfected that throughout their history, in the same traditional way that they always had, they fought. They continued to fight and they always would, it was simply their way.

A stranger emerges, a foreigner, one with different values and ethics. One who could perhaps help them to initiate the changes that they needed? Only time would tell.

He however, was totally unaware of what was about to befall, he had never been told any of the background, just sent there to do a job and fulfil the role that management required of him. He had been chosen specifically because of his character, his people skills, his empathy and perhaps even because of his naivety. He was about to discover many truths, very few to his liking…

Why Oh Why Couldn't You Have Burnt The Bloody Place Down?

So after three and a half years you make it to Mons Officer Cadet School, including two years in a war, only to discover the terrorist who had tried to kill you with a grenade and who, you in return, had tried to shoot, ends up in the bed next to you! What do you do? Advice from the staff to check your bed for a grenade every night before you get into it doesn’t really help. Six months of brutality, tiredness, sleeplessness and absolute pressure follow with course attendees dropping like flies. A year at a boys’ regiment when he is persecuted for not burning down the Officers’ Club follows and his career ends at a tank depot where an insane ex-para has storemen and vehicle specialists pretending to be fit paras. And the final stress is to look after a full general who is a menace to wood and the main contributor to Elastoplast’s profit that year! Join our hero, Jack, in this the second of the trilogy and be ready for the third!

Whales, Maidens and Gold

Henry Williams emigrated to Van Diemen's Land in 1831 with his family at age 5. His father was a boat-builder and his mother died when he was only 10. His brothers were all occupied with the sea whether as boat-builders or sailors, so it came as no surprise when he signed up on a whaler while still a teenager. For the next few years, he sailed the Pacific, hunting sperm, right and fin whales while having adventures in Hawaii and Tahiti. He arrived at the Californian Goldfields in 1849, not as a miner, but as a supplier of provisions to the goldminers. Fortunately, he recorded his impressions and experiences of the people and events he saw in an era when personal accounts were not common. This is the story of his adventures which come alive with his interest in the people he met and their different lifestyles.

Wet Wings: The Wrath of Real Love

Two passionate lovers find themselves caught inside a paradox of dreams and nightmares. The world they believed they’d created through synchronized dreams appears to be a much different place basking with the monstrosities of a bleak forgotten world of lost angels living in a valley—ones waiting for the end times.

And now Quinton Barker in his quest to find his beloved, an exotic woman by the name Juliana Rose, must battle through his own pain and break free from the wrathful deafening whips of torment and eternal death. With the help of his own tribe inside a tree house village—a utopian territory governed by a tribe of lost angels, he must find the truth and pour it out into reality.

Juliana is counting on Quinton to wake up again, but will it be possible after he finds himself seduced by aura of darkness to stay? He is strong enough to find his way back to the wrath of her real love? Will their love ever prevail through the midst of madness and deranged monsters lurking from every mountain cliff?

Dive deeper into an ethereal world under constant war with many forces possessed with elusive power!

Vapours Trails and Other Stories

Travelling home from Danegal early one evening, my wife, Anne, remarked how beautiful the plane’s vapour trails looked stretching across the azure blue sky. Suddenly a picture of a book cover and the title Vapour Trails in the Sky filled my mind. “Grandad”, suggested Erin, my granddaughter, as we discussed my new book, “why not write a book of short stories, you could call it—Vapour Trails and other short stories.” Thus began this series with the titles, Vapour Trails, The Jersey Girl, the Horses Heads, The Wind Bloweth, The Sand, Sea Adventure, The Mist, The Daring Young Man. And for the young readers, Murphy and Mama Goose.

Until We Meet Again

This is an African story of a young black caretaker and the white twin boys in his care and the circumstances and courage that took them to hell and back.

Unlike many other books covering the South African Angolan Bush War, the novel Until We Meet Again is the story of April and the twin boys Mark and Andy. The novel will take them on an adventure of survival and courage that will test their love and camaraderie for one another during a time when the divide between black and white in South Africa was controlled by dark forces.

The novel is about the everyday lives of the two South African families during the 1960s and 70s when the country was under attack from the Pan African Congress’s Poqo army. April would soon find him in a struggle between his own prospects for a better life for himself and his family, but cannot relinquish his responsibilities to care for the two siblings, which left him with difficult decisions to make which would test his courage to its limits.

April became a seasoned freedom fighter and one of the most wanted terrorists in South Africa, while the twins innocently landed themselves in an adventure that had turned into a life-threatening situation that they never dreamed of before. The story will take the reader from the tranquil mountains and rivers of the Eastern Cape to the war-torn Angolan desert where one of the most controversial cold war armed conflicts fuelled by the Americans and Russians would play off and end in a stalemate.

Uncertain Ground

Business partners Ron and Neil invest in an attractive East African location following their reluctant forced exit from Zimbabwe during the new land reforms and policies that took hold in the country in 2003.

Years later, both men find themselves, their clients and their acquaintances drawn into an unavoidable set of circumstances involving national law enforcement, an international investigation agency and high-level criminal activity.

Strong bonding relationships and humour, along with lust, killing and survival come together in this gritty and gripping novel set in the city and in the heart of the largest game reserve in Africa.