If you’re on a quest for novels that read like non-fiction,
a book by Palm Beach Garden author Ian A. O’Connor might be the perfect
solution. O’Connor has penned five
novels he describes as “95% fact interspersed with 5% fiction to confuse the
reader,” and his stories will have you puzzling over what is true and what is
the product of the writer’s fertile imagination.
Born in England, O’Connor came to the U.S. by way of Canada.
He wanted to pursue a career in law but joined the Air Force because of the
draft and became a career military man.
Before retiring as a full colonel, he held several leadership positions
in the field of national security management and was called back to active duty
during the first Gulf War. He lives in South Florida with his wife, Candice.
Although he graduated with a degree in Political Science,
O’Connor always enjoyed writing. “About
20 years ago, I found myself drawn to writing like a moth to a flame,” he
recalls. He began taking college graduate-level writing courses, attended
seminars and writing workshops, and in 2000, completed his first novel, The
Twilight of the Day, a thriller set in 1973. It is a
powerful story of human triumph in the face of impossible odds, a story of one
man's resolute faith in God and country when lesser men would have succumbed. Navy Captain James Vincent Trader endured
years of relentless torment as a prisoner of the North Vietnamese but his true
descent into hell began when he and nine others were sold in 1973 to a rogue country
for 70 million dollars. Who was the buyer, and what was expected of these men?
The answer is found in a closely guarded secret held by this extraordinary
fraternity of pilots. “I knew too
many pilots who had been shot down but never returned home, and that was my
motivation for writing the book,” O’Connor explains. “I still believe people
were deliberately abandoned and left to die, especially in Laos, and I didn’t
want that to ever happen again.” On September 9, 2017, O’Connor was honored by
the Military Writers Society of America in San Antonio, Texas, with the Bronze
Medal Award for The Twilight of the Day.
O’Connor’s next book, The
Seventh Seal, introduces retired FBI agent Justin Scott who is hired by the
Vatican when its ambassador to the U.S.is accused of murdering his mistress. The
Seventh Seal was voted a 2017 Semi-Finalist in the Sixth Annual Kindle Book
Awards for best Thriller of the Year. (The winner will be announced on November
1, 2017.) The second book in the Justin Scott series, The Barbarossa Covenant, is based on a fictitious letter penned by
Winston Churchill and author Ian Fleming to thwart Hitler’s planned invasion of
England. When the letter turns up in the Vatican decades later, Scott is called
to verify its authenticity before Doomsday arrives. Kirkus Reviews praised the
book as “…a nifty thriller that...holds reader interest with his breakneck
plot...”
O’Connor‘s latest
novel turns from Justin Scott to a doctor based on a 20-year-old exposé in the
Miami Herald. The Wrong Road Home
tells the compelling story of Desmond Donahue, an Irish immigrant who spent his
life masquerading as a surgeon. Armed
with nothing more than a GED and some bogus medical diplomas, Donahue manages
to evade discovery despite many close calls, but at tremendous cost to his
personal life. O’Connor was a close friend of the real-life “Desmond Donahue”
who requested that O’Connor tell his story. “I knew him for years,” O’Connor
explains. “Even as a friend, he was always reserved and distant. He seemed very
lonely. He called me one Saturday night in tears and told me his life was
ruined. The next morning, I opened the paper and saw a story on the front page
about a prominent Miami physician who had been unmasked as a fraud.” Florida
Weekly describes the book as “…a highly realistic psychological portrait of a
man addicted to a dream and determined to attain it.”
O’Connor has
completed the third novel in his Justin Scott series, The Masada Option, which is scheduled for release in 2018. The story unfolds at lighting speed
over a five day period in May when a rogue element inside Israel's Intelligence
Service takes matters into its own hands and prepares to launch a devastating
nuclear first-strike against the Muslim World from about a hijacked British Trident submarine with its arsenal of nuclear missiles capable of destroying most of the earth's major cities. Iran, Syria, Pakistan, Malaysia, and the entire Arabian Peninsula will be obliterated in one fell swoop, rendering Islam powerless for
the next thousand years. This fanatical band of outlaws are willing to
sacrifice the State of Israel to nuclear retaliation only because they believe
Judaism will survive in flourishing communities in New York, Chicago, and Los
Angeles. The Prime Minister of Israel does not know who he can trust
inside his own government to stop the madness and turns to the one man he
believes can find the solution to avert an imminent worldwide calamity. That
man is his friend, retired FBI agent Justin Scott.
While promising an edge-of-the-seat reading experience and
plots that read like today’s headlines, O’Connor hopes his books will leave
readers satisfied that their time and money was well spent.
For more information, visit the author’s website at www.ianaoconnor.com.
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