I have one superfan. Every writer deserves at least one. She knows who she is, and I especially enjoy her feedback. Sometimes, before she’s finished the current book of mine, she asks me when the next one will be out. That makes a writer feel all warm and gooey inside.

Also, as a writer, you gotta love that creative pressure.

So, here’s what’s next.

2023

In December, my 9/11 series Meeting the Enemy will conclude. The final book (no. 4) is RENDITION, and its publication date is December 23. The preorder will go live right around Thanksgiving, so plenty of time to give RENDITION (and the other three books) as holiday gifts. Of course, the reader magnet for RENDITION — PROLOGUE TO RENDITION — is available for preorder now.

2024

In 2024, my focus will be on publishing a non-series, standalone novel, The Devil Passed By. This novel takes place in 1979, early in Mai’s and Alexei’s partnership. The setting is Belfast, Northern Ireland, during The Troubles. Also in this novel, I explore some of Mai’s Irish side, which I’ve referenced several times in other works.

In the last month, I started a total rewrite of The Devil Passed By based on some critiquers’ good feedback, and given the number of plot holes they spotted, this may end up being a part one and a part two “novel.” Of course, it’s all up to the editor what stays and what goes.

I also have a reader magnet drafted for The Devil Passed By. The as yet untitled reader magnet will come out midsummer 2024, with the novel publishing in early fall.

2025

The next year, 2025, will see the publication of an eBook box set of three full-length novels about secondary characters who have appeared in my other books. The eBook box set is titled Secrets.

Book 1, A Spy’s Legacy, an homage to John le Carre’s A Legacy of Spies, is about Mai’s mother, who’s never appeared in any of my works because she died in 1963, but I’ve included many references about her. In the early 2000s, Mai finds a unique way to learn about her mother’s life, but Alexei knows a secret he’ll do anything to keep Mai from discovering.

Book 2, For My Country, is Olga Lubova’s “memoir.” Not a real memoir, of course, because Olga is a fictional character, but I had great fun researching to create her life and work history. Again, she learns of a secret she doesn’t want Alexei to know.

Book 3, Grace Under Pressure, a bit of a pun is the title, is the story of Grace Lydell’s tenure in the Directorate, starting from the least senior analyst and up through her retirement as Head of Analysis. Upon her death from natural causes, her brothers offer Mai and Alexei a box of Grace’s secrets, and they have to decide how to deal with them.

The eBook box set will come out first with print editions soon after. Stay tuned.

Also in 2025, I hope to start publishing a new series titled Enemies Domestic. This will be another three-book series: book one is Mine to Kill (I think that’s a very Bond-ish sounding title.); book two is A Die Cast; and book three is A Squalid Procession of Vain Fools. That last title comes from a line in John le Carre’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.

Enemies Domestic is based on contemporary history, i.e., current events, beginning in 2014. By 2025, maybe some of the current events will have reached a conclusion I can address in fiction. Regardless, Mai and Alexei will undergo a lot of life changes.

And . . . somewhere in the next two to three years, I also have a second mystery featuring the two main characters (Marilyn Hendrix and Cody Brito) from Supreme Madness of the Carnival Season that needs to be published. Supreme Madness was somewhat inspired by Poe’s “A Cask of Amontillado,” but the second book, Mournful Influence of the Unperceived Shadow, is inspired by Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart.”

After that?

I honestly don’t know.