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Unique Challenges
Enemy at the Helm follows the aftermath of coordinated attacks on U.S. harbors that leave investigators scrambling to determine who is responsible. Where did the idea for this novel come from?
My wife and I were departing port on a cruise ship when I saw a Defender-class U.S. Coast Guard vessel off our rear flank mirroring our heading and speed. When I casually mentioned I knew why he was there—and how to defeat it, she looked at me like I had two heads. Once I quickly fleshed out a hypothetical story, she suggested I should write it. So it was all her idea, actually!
Did you find anything in your research for this book that surprised you?
The physical dimensions of the channels and canals are publicly available and are really quite small. When you have a large ship like the ones that are commonly used today, it can easily cause a blockage of all transit. I’ve been to the Miraflores locks on the Panama Canal, and I can confirm that any long-term blockage would be disastrous. We’ve seen what happens with temporary blockages in Baltimore Harbor, the Panama Canal, and the Suez Canal. With today’s Iranian war already disrupting global economies, I hope the Yemenis don’t read this and get any ideas!
When writing characters who work inside high-pressure investigative environments, how do you make sure their personal reactions still come through?
I’m a trauma surgeon. I’ve been threatened and have had to subdue people. I also do a lot of tactical and combatives training and have practiced many of the maneuvers I described in the novel. In fact, I’m currently training for SWAT team qualification. Even though we train for and have experience in stressful situations so that muscle memory kicks in, we are still always thinking of the lives we are responsible for. Every situation has its own unique challenges. Adapting to something you haven’t seen before creates its own stress. So, it’s a matter of recalling and recording those feelings.
Can you give us a glimpse inside the next book in this thriller series?
Sure! Pursuit and Pain delves into the backstory of the people behind the original attacks, set among a backdrop of ongoing nationwide trials and tribulations and leadership challenges caused by the global trade shutdown. Favorite characters return, and new ones emerge in the international search for the ultimate mastermind.
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AMAZON BESTSELLER
The United States is in crisis.
All the major US ports have been rendered inoperable by the simultaneous sinking of large vessels in their choke points, thus halting the bulk of global trade. At first, the president thinks he has been given a gift. He always thought the United States got the raw end of the deal in international trade because of the spineless behavior of his predecessors. But with the resulting shortages of everything, he soon realizes that people in extreme situations behave irrationally, and he struggles to stay afloat himself.
Tom Jensen, a young hippie devoted more to surfing than to working, is improbably caught in the middle, drawn to fight back against the unseen forces driving the global disaster. Joining his FBI agent uncle and others working to uncover the terrorist plot, he gets an international adventure he never saw coming.
Enemy at the Helm is the provocative and engaging first installment of a new thriller series full of terrorist activity, conspiracies, and the military operations and other, less-expected efforts to stop them. This fast-paced story will keep you turning the pages and leave you eagerly anticipating the next episode in the series.
Enemy at the Helm
Enemy at the Helm is a geopolitical techno-thriller with a strong military and law-enforcement spine. It kicks off with coordinated April 15 attacks that sink or cripple ships in major U.S. harbors and effectively jam the country’s maritime supply lines, pushing the government into crisis-mode while investigators scramble to figure out whether this was domestic, foreign, or both. From there, the story fans out into a fast-moving hunt across agencies and borders, following people like FBI agent Sam Jensen and NYPD investigator Chuck Haggard as the case keeps widening, getting uglier, and feeling less like a single plot and more like a whole machine.
I really liked how the book leans into the nuts and bolts. The meetings, the handoffs, the “here’s what we know, here’s what we don’t,” the way one small clue can become the thread everybody yanks on. Author Mark Dickson clearly likes the procedural side, and when it works, it really works. You can feel the gears turning. The downside is that sometimes the story pauses to explain the gears while they’re turning. Still, in this genre, that grounded detail is part of the appeal. It made the threat feel tangible.
I also appreciated the author’s choice to keep widening the lens. The book moves through multiple points of view, and that creates a kind of controlled overwhelm that matches the scenario. One minute you’re with people trying to solve the puzzle, the next you’re watching the fallout hit families in relatable ways. When the action tightens, it can get surprisingly vivid, like the late chase and capture where Tom ends up literally grabbing the bad guy in the mud and the dark. And then, right after, the story slows down in a hospital room with monitors beeping and a teammate on a ventilator, which hit me harder than I expected. That contrast felt earned. Not poetic. Just real.
By the end, the book lands where a good thriller should: you get payoff, but you also get the sense that this problem is bigger than one arrest. The capture leads into a clear “next phase,” with leadership pushing the main characters toward a longer fight, not a neat bow. I’d recommend Enemy at the Helm most to readers who like fast stakes, modern security fears, and procedural realism. If you enjoy military thrillers, agency-and-operations stories, and the kind of techno-thriller that makes you glance at a port and think, “Yeah… that’s a soft spot,” you’ll probably tear through this one.
Pages: 220 | ISBN : 978-1632997319
