Tuesday, July 26, 2011

FOODFIC: Please Welcome Mike Angley, Author of the Child Finder Trilogy



First, let me introduce myself: I retired as a Colonel from the U.S. Air Force in 2007, following an exciting and dangerous 25-year career as a Special Agent with the OSI (Office of Special Investigations). 13 assignments around the world, including 5 tours as unit Commander, made me a seasoned criminal investigator and a counterintelligence and counterterrorism specialist. I put my writing ambitions on hold until I retired, then happily signed a contract to publish my Child Finder trilogy. The first 2 books have each won national awards; the third and final installment, Child Finder: Revelation, will be released November 1st

My debut novel, Child Finder, introduces Air Force OSI Special Agent Patrick S. O’Donnell, who discovers (reluctantly) that he has a unique gift to find missing children. Unfortunately, Uncle Sam quickly pulls him into a Top Secret under-world community that leverages his skills for just about everything but finding the abducted. It’s a tale of double-crosses, sinister government agencies at work, and people driven by their own agendas, like FBI Agent Vicky Desantis, who couldn’t care less that Pat is a happily married man and devoted father. In this scene, she tricks him into meeting her at a safe house to discuss “urgent business,” but he finds himself walking into a romantic dinner she’s prepared for him. Although he protests being fooled into coming, he allows the flirtation to play out:

He sat down and watched Vicky move from covered tray to covered tray, deftly putting together a seven-course meal of French foods, the names of which he couldn’t even pronounce. They laughed and chatted away throughout the meal, finishing first the bottle of Dom Perignon, and then a vintage 1966 Bordeaux from the A. de Luze & Fils St. Julien vineyard in France.
                “It’s from the year you were born, Patrick,” she said as she poured his glass and then caressed his hand as she set the bottle down

You’ll have to read the book to learn what happened after the meal!

In Child finder: Resurrection, Agent O’Donnell is back with a few former team members – the ones who weren’t jailed or killed in the first book. In book #2, Pat and his team discover that he’s not the only gifted psychic in the world; enter a cunning serial killer whose skill set seems to outpace even O’Donnell’s and who will stop at nothing to get to Pat and kill him. Yet, there is a moment of peace in the story: on Easter morning, following mass, Pat takes his family to the Fort Belvoir Officers’ Club for Sunday brunch. Having been to these brunches at that particular club, I can attest to the splendid spread I describe in the following passage:

                There were huge, separate sections with several tables just for salads, with bins holding every conceivable topping on Earth. There was another sizeable station for breads…french, sourdough, pumpernickel, rye, wheat…in slices, in rolls, in buns, and in loaves. In the center was the hot entrĂ©e station that the children had practically raided, next to which was a seafood bar with oysters, lobsters, shrimp, and more. Although mom and dad made sensible, balanced food choices, each of the four O’Donnells went wild with the dessert station. In the center of it all was a chocolate fountain that Erin found simply fascinating. They gorged themselves on cakes and pies, ice cream and chocolates. When the frenzy finally subsided, they all looked at each other and broke out in laughter, with crumbs flying everywhere. 

Though the family enjoyed the feast – and Pat the brief respite from the hunt – the madman was not far away, plotting the next move that would put O’Donnell on a kill-or-be-killed path for the rest of the book...
 

Thanks for stopping by and sharing some food for thought, Mike!

 

You can find Mike at:
http://www.mikeangley.com
http://twitter.com/#!MikeAngley
http://facebook.com/mike.angley


2 comments:

  1. Shelley, thanks for having me as a guest-blogger!

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  2. Mike's had a busy 3 years since he dropped by for this guest spot; here's what he's been up to:

    In 2012 I was honored with selection as Author of the Year for the Military Writers Society of America, and it was my third book, Child Finder: Revelation, which brought that distinction home. The MWSA is a group of hundreds of writers and artists who honor the military with their work, or who served in the military (like I did) and who write as a passion or as a career. (website is: http://www.mwsadispatches.com/). I’ve been working for quite some time on a new standalone thriller, Jeronimo’s War, but it’s a new work-in-progress and it will be sometime before it’s ready for an editor. Here’s the elevator pitch:



    Jake Jeronimo finds himself ducking for cover when a hailstorm of bullets rips through his metal office shed. The 60-something salvage yard owner becomes an unlikely target in a covert war between the U.S. and Mexican governments as both sides try to find something left behind in a car wreck in Jeronomo’s car smashing machine. Will the one-legged Vietnam veteran side with either party, or will he pursue the secrets left behind in search of something so important, both countries will kill anyone to obtain it? Jeronimo’s war with U.S. and Mexican authorities becomes a game of one-upmanship as this former Green Beret must draw upon every skill he learned over forty years ago.

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