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Personal Baggage
Bones of Black Saints follows two civil rights attorneys defending a young Black activist accused of shooting a white police officer while confronting racial injustice, police solidarity, and competing versions of truth in Durham, North Carolina. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
I represented a young man named Carlos Riley in Durham. Bones of Black Saints is a fictionalized take on his trial.
How did you develop Zenko’s mixture of anxiety, humor, faith, intelligence, and self-doubt?
I wanted a passionate, committed trial attorney who struggled with mental health issues.
Why was it important to portray accomplished attorneys who also struggle with mental health?
I’ve grappled with my own mental health demons. Realistically presenting these issues was a goal of mine in this and in the series of other books, such as The Girl Wore a Hockey Helmet. We trial attorneys bring our personal baggage into the courtroom as much as we try to keep it out. Substance abuse, alcoholism, and depression disproportionately affect lawyers. That’s the reality. One of my clients was sent to Death Row in N.C. because he had a drunk trial attorney. After almost thirty years, the Governor commuted his sentence to life without parole.
What responsibility do you think fiction has when engaging with painful historical events?
Fiction can help us learn and make sense of racial injustice and prosecutorial misconduct. As a writer, I feel a responsibility to confront injustices of the past. That is the first step in combating such inequities in the future.
Author Links: GoodReads | X (Twitter) | Facebook | Website | Amazon
Bones of Black Saints
Alex Charns’s Bones of Black Saints is a legal thriller and courtroom drama rooted in the politics, history, and racial tensions of Durham, North Carolina. The case centers on Marcos Salazar, a young Black Lives Matter activist accused of shooting a white police officer during a traffic stop. His defense rests with veteran civil rights attorneys Star Gwiazda and Zenko Luczek, who believe the officer shot himself and that the police department has closed ranks around him. From jury selection through closing arguments, the novel turns legal procedure into a contest over whose version of reality will survive.
Zenko’s first-person narration gives this crime novel its distinct personality. He’s anxious, funny, devoutly Catholic, obsessed with hockey, and deeply shaped by his Polish family’s experiences during World War II. His thoughts move freely among the trial, the Black Madonna of Czestochowa, the Greensboro Massacre, old wounds, and elaborate hockey metaphors. Those digressions make the story feel intimate and politically alert, though I did feel that their frequency can slow the courtroom suspense at times. They also reveal how history lives inside Zenko’s daily choices, especially his determination to recognize fascism and institutional abuse before they’re allowed to hide behind respectable appearances.
The courtroom scenes are the strongest part of this police corruption thriller. Charns, a civil rights attorney, writes with a practitioner’s command of motions, evidence, jury selection, witness preparation, and cross-examination. Star is especially memorable, confronting hostile witnesses and prosecutorial misconduct with theatrical nerve and sharp legal instincts. Her relationship with Zenko brings humor and affection to proceedings charged with danger. Their shared mental health histories add further depth, showing two capable advocates who rely on medication, routines, friendship, faith, and hockey to remain steady under extraordinary pressure.
As social justice fiction, Bones of Black Saints connects one contested traffic stop to racial profiling, white supremacy, economic inequality, police solidarity, and the limits of courtroom justice. Its humor keeps the political argument lively, while its detailed trial strategy makes the eventual verdict feel earned. The final development lands with particular force because it exposes acquittal as one moment in a much longer struggle. This is an impassioned legal thriller about lawyers fighting for a client while wrestling with their own histories, blind spots, fears, and stubborn faith in justice. I recommend Charns’s novel to readers who enjoy thought-provoking legal thrillers that explore racial injustice and the complex pursuit of justice.
Pages: 419 | ASIN : B08F75MNK2
A Man of Significance
Life in Woke America follows an Army private who discovers a secret Chinese bioweapon, leading him to question the institutions he trusted. You described your book as autofiction inspired by true events. What inspired you to combine personal experience with fictional storytelling?
My work as a Court Appointed Special Advocate connects me with high school-age boys who have avoided run-ins with law enforcement and tell me that they think about thinking. These boys I enjoy and who have the ability to move from the margins of society to the upper levels of America’s middle class and higher. Very few do, and most don’t. This novel is inspired by what it takes for any of these boys to make this kind of success happen.
What did you want Xavier’s development from someone without a stable family to someone actively creating one to reveal about him?
My work with these boys has taken place during a specific “age” in America. This age is uniquely defined by the COVID pandemic, a focus on marginalized groups, and billion-dollar sports franchises, among other things. Similar novels have told stories of the Industrial Revolution, the Civil War, and more. The story I tell reveals how this era presented a certain set of challenges and opportunities for Xavier and how he responded. His choices reveal much about the society in which he found himself, and the boy who becomes a man of significance.
Considering the political focus suggested by the title, the novel devotes substantial attention to romance and family. Why was that personal side of Xavier’s life so important to the larger story?
I like to remind people that you cannot tell a book by its cover. I could just as easily have titled the book Life in a Sports-Crazed America, and told the same story. My point is this isn’t a political story, nor a polemic. I describe real events of this era and let the character develop as he matures. It isn’t that the personal side is so important to the larger story; it is the larger story. And sometimes I am amused by how often people assume it is otherwise.
The final image of life as a mosaic brings together many different pieces of Xavier’s experience. What does that metaphor mean to you?
I really enjoyed writing that poem. It turned out so much better than the same message in prose. Much like the comment about being fooled by the title, he tells Mrs. Pearson that she has been deceived into viewing people as stereotyped members of a group defined by physical attributes. Xavier is reminding her that by referring to the beauty of his mosaic derives from many individual tiles. This metaphor flows from the U.S. Constitution’s deliberate claim that all human rights belong to the individual–America’s greatness is its plurality of individuals, not the state of one group or another.
Author Links: GoodReads | X (Twitter) | Facebook | Website | Amazon
When Army Private Xavier King, a foster child who grew up without a family, joins the military in search of purpose, he discovers that the greatest battles aren’t always fought overseas. After uncovering a secret Chinese bioweapon lab operating on U.S. soil, Xavier expects the system to act. Instead, he finds himself facing powerful institutions, political pressure, and moral choices that threaten everything he has worked to build.
As he fights to protect the life and love he has found with Audrey, Xavier must navigate institutional betrayal while remaining true to his principles. Blending high-stakes suspense, a tender slow-burn romance, and timely political conflict, this novel explores what happens when ordinary people are forced to defend extraordinary truths.
At its heart, Life in Woke America is a story about personal responsibility, the strength of family, the search for truth, and the courage to stand firm when convictions are tested. It captures the enduring “Great American Fight Back Spirit” through a story of redemption, patriotism, resilience, and hope.
Perfect for readers who enjoy thought-provoking political thrillers, emotionally rich character-driven fiction, and stories that challenge them to think critically, question assumptions, and draw their own conclusions.
Echoes of Fortune: Knights of the Golden Circle
Echoes of Fortune: The Knights of the Golden Circle, by David R. Leng, is a historical thriller that blends Civil War secrets, modern conspiracy, coded messages, and treasure-hunt adventure. The story follows historian Jack Sullivan, along with Emma, Priya, Steve, and their allies, as they uncover a hidden legacy tied to Jefferson Davis, Confederate gold, and the real secret society known as the Knights of the Golden Circle. What begins as a historical puzzle grows into something much larger and more dangerous, moving between the final days of the Confederacy and a present-day threat that reaches into the highest levels of power.
I enjoyed the way the book treats history as something alive and unsettled. Leng does not just use the past as decoration. He lets it press against the present, sometimes like a warning and sometimes like a buried fuse. The Civil War chapters have a cold, tense atmosphere, and the modern scenes move with the quick pulse of a conspiracy thriller. I liked how Jack’s academic curiosity keeps pulling him forward, even when common sense says to stop digging. That felt true to the genre. In a historical thriller, the best discoveries should feel both exciting and dangerous, and this book understands that.
The author makes some bold choices with scope. This is not a small mystery tucked inside an archive. It grows into a sprawling adventure with politics, military action, secret networks, old codes, and personal stakes. At times, that scale gives the story real momentum. At other times, I felt the book was trying to carry a lot at once, especially when the plot shifts from a research-driven mystery into high-level national danger. Still, I appreciated the ambition. The relationships also help ground the larger plot. Jack and Emma’s bond, Priya’s sharp mind, and Steve’s loyalty give the story a human center, so the book is not only about maps, symbols, and hidden treasure. It’s about trust, fear, obsession, and what people inherit from history without always realizing it.
I recommend Echoes of Fortune: The Knights of the Golden Circle to readers who enjoy historical thrillers with a strong conspiracy angle, especially fans of secret societies, Civil War mysteries, coded clues, and fast-moving adventure. If you like stories where old documents can open dangerous doors, this book will likely pull you in. It’s best for readers who enjoy a big, cinematic plot and don’t mind when the stakes keep rising far beyond the first mystery.
Pages: 647 | ASIN : B0H46XN5CG
Omega II – A Cry for Help
Omega II: A Cry for Help, by David J. Story, is a hard-edged thriller about a covert team that hunts child traffickers, rescues victims, and follows the trail wherever it leads. The book brings Jack Davidson, Shay Lynn, Dana, Hunter, Vicky, and the rest of Omega into a mission that starts with a courtroom case and expands into something much larger, darker, and more personal. It’s a story built around action, interrogation, surveillance, revenge, rescue work, and the emotional toll of fighting people who prey on children.
Omega isn’t presented as a polished agency working neatly inside official lines. They’re intense, damaged, loyal, and willing to cross boundaries when they believe children are in danger. That mindset is captured well when Vicky says, “The children are the only ones that matter.” It’s a simple line, but it says a lot about the team’s priorities and why the story keeps pushing forward even when the situations get grim.
The novel also spends a lot of time with the team itself, not just the cases. Dana’s search for her sister gives the book a personal thread, while Shay’s past and her bond with Jack add weight to the mission. The group’s banter, arguments, and moments of silence help make them feel like people who’ve survived hard things together. There’s a lot of operational detail too, from cameras and drones to raids and questioning, which gives the story the feel of a mission log mixed with a revenge thriller.
Story doesn’t soften the villains, and the book’s darker moments are meant to make the reader angry. The traffickers, abusers, and enablers are shown as part of a wider network, and Omega’s response is just as forceful. One of the sharpest lines comes during an interrogation, when Wilson answers a predator’s excuse with, “Yes, it is a sickness, Mr. Mason, and we are the cure.” That line fits the book’s tone perfectly. It’s blunt, severe, and completely in line with Omega’s view of justice.
A Cry for Help is a gritty, mission-driven thriller with a strong vigilante edge and a clear moral center. It’s about rescue, loyalty, trauma, and the fury that comes from seeing innocence exploited. The book moves through courtroom drama, tactical raids, personal revelations, international leads, and undercover work, then ends with a cliffhanger that pushes the series into its next conflict. Readers who like team-based thrillers with high stakes, dark subject matter, and a strong sense of payback will find a lot to engage with here.
Pages: 329 | ASIN : B0GK2J6BT4
Questionable Choices
The Cuckoo Asset follows a bruised, gifted electronics student from Belfast whose intelligence and skills make him a highly sought-after asset, making him a pawn in a game he doesn’t understand. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
Early in my career, back in 1988, as a popular young teacher, I was mistakenly identified as a former CIA technical officer by a bright student who had seen my name on a document released by the Iranian Government.
I immediately thought that a young man duped into becoming involved in a Cold War CIA operation, then living a secret life after fleeing a war zone, could make a great story. I chipped away at the story for many years after that.
What aspects of Kenny’s personality do you think readers connect with most strongly?
Readers connect most strongly with McKenna’s determination to reinvent himself. He grew up in a difficult environment, and now he longs for acceptance, opportunity, and a life beyond the limits of his childhood on the notorious Shankill Road in Belfast. His desire to please others and be valued makes him vulnerable to manipulation, and while his intelligence and optimism encourage readers to root for him, McKenna makes increasingly questionable choices, but his continued self-reflection and discomfort with those decisions remind readers that he has not abandoned his conscience. Rather than watching a hero become a villain, readers witness an ordinary, gifted young man struggling to reconcile who he wants to be with the instincts or traits that he inherited from his violent father. This is the same trait that makes the cuckoo chick kill its step-siblings.
That, to me, is the emotional core of Kenny’s appeal. The reader doesn’t connect with him because he is a covert asset. They connect with him because he is trying to be a good man and gradually discovers how difficult that can be.
What kind of research did you undertake to portray Angola and its geopolitical significance?
A lifetime of reading obscure government and United Nations publications, declassified intelligence documents, and interviewing Angolan people who lived during the 70s and 80s. The occasional conversation with an individual who cannot be identified!
What emotional journey did you most want readers to experience alongside Kenny?
I was determined that The Cuckoo Asset was never going to be a conventional “heroic spy” story. The novel is designed as a progressive emotional unravelling of an ordinary young man as a promising opportunity leads him from the relative safety of Coventry into the chaos of war-torn Angola.
At the beginning of the novel, readers are invited to feel curious about David ‘Kenny’ McKenna and sympathetic towards the challenges he faced growing up amid the violence of Belfast. There is a sense of “this is a smart young man entering a complex world”. The protagonist McKenna is grounded in logic and systems, not ideology or violence. He seems to be a nice guy.
The reader then begins to feel unease and tension as a life-changing opportunity for our protagonist goes so very wrong. The reader senses that McKenna is “lucky” or “talented enough to be chosen,” but the reader also has the benefit of being able to interpret the antagonists’ intentions much faster than McKenna does. Once he is in Angola, confusion and frustration kicks in for both the reader and McKenna himself in Angola. The familiar questions of espionage fiction emerge: who can be trusted, who is manipulating whom, and where does the real danger lie?
Unease turns into moral discomfort as McKenna becomes involved in violent rebel activity, international smuggling, and CIA covert activity. Moral erosion, “Every choice costs something,” is one of my central emotional intentions. The reader experiences anxiety and ethical discomfort because McKenna doesn’t become “evil”; he just fits in better. For readers, this can be more unsettling than a simple moral fall because they understand why each compromise is made, even as they recognise its consequences.
Finally, as McKenna returns to Angola in 1999, the anxiety and tension become fear and horror as McKenna, out of a misguided loyalty to an old friend who had exploited him earlier, is caught and tortured by the police in Angola. Hope seems lost. This emotional peak has shock, suspense, heartbreak, joy, and anger. The main conflict almost reaches its turning point here, but the uncertainty of the outcome for McKenna keeps them emotionally invested.
By the end of the book, readers may feel both relief and satisfaction as the conflict is resolved. The later themes of resilience, loyalty, family, and friendship also encourage reflection long after the final two chapters. My hope is that readers close the book not only entertained by the thriller elements but also consider the personal cost of survival, the complexity of human relationships, and the choices that shape a life.
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A gifted Irish student is drawn into a brutal Civil War in Angola and slowly becomes part of the very world he once feared.
He believes he’s there for a routine technical internship. He’s never been so wrong.
Unwittingly drawn into a shadow world of intelligence operatives, cut-outs, and deniable missions, McKenna soon discovers that everyone around him is hiding something, including the people who sent him there.
Twenty years later he uncovers the truth, and now rival intelligence services want him silenced.
From Las Vegas poker tables to the scorched streets of Luanda, The Cuckoo Asset is a tense, atmospheric espionage thriller steeped in realism, betrayal, and survival.
Perfect for readers of John le Carré and Frederick Forsyth.
The Cuckoo Asset
The Cuckoo Asset is an ambitious spy thriller that moves between Belfast, Coventry, Luanda, Kinshasa, London, Zambia, and Langley without losing sight of its central question: what happens when a clever young man is pulled into a game he doesn’t understand until it’s far too late. David “Kenny” McKenna starts as a bruised, gifted electronics student from Belfast, someone who trusts circuits more than people. That makes him useful to men like Peter DeVries and the nameless Chief, who see intelligence, loneliness, and technical talent as tools to be picked up and used.
I think the book works best as a story about recruitment, manipulation, and consequence. Its Cold War world is full of taxis, hotel rooms, dead drops, oil installations, chess games, fake reports, and people who know just enough to be dangerous. Angola gives the novel its political weight, while McKenna gives it its emotional centre. Judith Morales and Joe Chilondo are especially interesting because they aren’t written as simple side players. They’re compromised, capable, and human, and their decisions keep pushing the story into murkier territory.
Mac Seáin’s style is patient and procedural, often building tension through logistics rather than spectacle. The details of travel papers, surveillance habits, smuggling routes, electronics, and chess strategy give the novel a grounded feel. There’s also a recurring chess metaphor that feels earned because McKenna’s whole life becomes a board controlled by stronger players. The final message in The Urusov Gambit, “A king can whisper, but a pawn stays silent still,” neatly captures the book’s sense of power, secrecy, and survival.
What I liked most is that the novel treats history as something lived through by frightened, practical people. The assassination plot, the oil sabotage, the shifting loyalties, and the later 1999 reckoning all connect back to personal choices made under pressure. The book has plenty of action, especially near the end, but it’s not just chasing thrills. It’s interested in how states hide crimes, how assets become liabilities, and how ordinary people carry the damage long after the operation is over.
By the end, The Cuckoo Asset feels like a historical espionage novel with the heart of a survivor’s story. It’s about Angola and Cold War interference, yes, but it’s also about Kenny McKenna learning that cleverness doesn’t protect you from being used. The closing line, “The game would never be over,” works because the novel has spent hundreds of pages showing exactly why that’s true. It’s a layered, serious, and quietly unsettling thriller that rewards readers who enjoy espionage built on character, tradecraft, and long consequences.
Pages: 349 | ASIN : B0GHPC8YHW
Deadly Dial: A Political Thriller
In Michael H. Balfour’s Deadly Dial, radio host Riley Anderson takes a late-night call from a chilling anonymous voice known as the Prophet, and that call becomes the first note in a larger civic nightmare. As political murders, public confessions, hidden corruption, and copycat violence ripple through the city, Riley joins Detective Alex Thompson and forensic analyst Ellie Mitchell in trying to understand whether they are hunting a killer, a movement, or the city’s own diseased conscience made audible.
I was pulled in by the book’s atmosphere first. The city feels perpetually fluorescent, rain-smeared, and morally overheated, a place where every institution has a locked drawer and every public statement sounds half-rehearsed. Riley is a strong center for that world because she is not simply brave or clever; she is complicit in the strange machinery of attention. Her microphone gives her power, but it also makes her vulnerable, and the novel is at its best when it asks whether exposing rot is the same thing as feeding it.
The strongest scenes have the tension of a broadcast where no one can find the off switch. The Prophet’s voice is grandiose, sometimes almost baroque, but that theatricality works because the book understands spectacle as a weapon. I also enjoyed the uneasy partnership between Riley and Alex, which gives the story a human voltage beneath the larger political conspiracy. The prose leans into noir darkness, but its best images have a serrated beauty, turning offices, studios, courtrooms, and evidence rooms into haunted civic organs.
This book is best suited for readers of crime thrillers, conspiracy thrillers, and noir mystery fiction, especially those who like investigations tangled with media ethics and institutional decay. Readers who enjoy the grim procedural pressure of Michael Connelly mixed with the paranoid civic sprawl of James Patterson’s darker thrillers will find familiar pleasures here. Deadly Dial is a tense political thriller about what happens when a city finally hears the sound of its own corruption calling back.
Pages: 265 | ASIN : B0GHPW46JL
