J. Gunnar Grey

I’ve recently learned something disturbing about myself, or maybe it’s about my writing. Ya ready? Here it is, the Big Reveal.

I have trouble writing anything that doesn’t include at least one gun going off.

*crickets*

Nobody’s surprised but me, huh? Okay, let’s back up and try this again.

I love paramilitary adventures. The realistic military stories are good, too, but there are just so many confining regs. For me, it’s more fun to play around the rules and let the good guys and gals do things their own way. Paramilitary invites more twists and turns, more adventures going off half-cocked, and humor that isn’t black comedy or anti-military. (I admire the real military too much for mockery.)

But paramilitary stories need guns. And not just little bitty guns that fit in someone’s pocket or down a corset. Spy adventure guns just don’t cut it for me. When discussing caliber, size matters. I want big guns, nasty guns, guns with bullets that rip through armor plating and smash out the other side. I wanna see the hero go diving behind a desk that won’t stop the bullet and roll to get away, you know what I mean?

Oh, yeah, baby. Size matters. First Cav artillerymen in Korea, admiring bazookas.

*crickets*

Okay. Once more, with feeling.

I love World War II adventures set in Europe. Yeah, I know. The Nazis were evil, utterly and despicably evil, and the German Army, the Wehrmacht, was ferocious. That’s what makes them such wonderful bad guys — and such interesting good guys. The ones who weren’t despicable, evil, and ferocious had to battle themselves, their consciences and beliefs and honor, from the first bullet to the last. The choices they made had the potential to change the face of the world. And if they made a mistake, that last bullet was their own. These adventures were real. They meant something.

German paratroopers, the Fallschirmjager, with a Tiger II during the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes. Drool.

And they always included guns. Give the German Army credit, they had some of the best guns. Their 88mm field artillery was feared by every army that went against them. When fired at a distance of two thousand yards, over a mile away, their high-explosive rounds could still penetrate most armor plating before exploding. And when mounted on a Tiger II, the tank weighed sixty-eight tons.

*crickets*

Listen, you’re not going to convince me. Every book needs a firing gun. Well, maybe not Jane Austen, although some Brown Bess muskets might liven up a ball or two, masquerade or otherwise. Rewriting Emma with a hostage situation, now there’s a challenge. Mr. Knightley coming to the rescue with a fowling piece. Oh, yeah.

Honestly, how would we get by without the smell of gunpowder in the morning? It’s as necessary as coffee, right?

*STOMP*

Got that bugger. He was getting awfully noisy.

Anyways, all this is to explain my problem. See, I’m writing a Regency. I’m putting the heroine aboard a Royal Navy frigate, without telling the captain, and sending them out against a French Navy marauder.

It’s a Regency.

Battle of the Nile by Thomas Luny.                                                                   Can’t you just smell the gunpowder?

But, me being me, it’s got guns.

A lot of guns. Big guns, too.

You’ll love it. Trust me.

Wehrmacht Major Faust has a dangerous secret: he likes England. But it’s May 1940 and his Panzers are blasting the British Army off Dunkirk’s beach, so he keeps his mouth shut even though it hurts. When the Waffen SS try to murder their English prisoners of war, Faust helps the POWs escape. Now it’s treason, with his neck on the line.

Then a friend gets him drunk, straps him into a parachute, and throws him out over Oxford during a bombing run. He’s quickly caught. Because he helped type the battle plan for the invasion of England, Faust cannot allow himself to be broken in interrogation. Two German armies depend on it. But every time he escapes, someone rapes and murders a woman and the English are looking for someone to hang. He’s risking disaster if he stays, someone else’s life if he runs, and execution by the Gestapo if he makes it home.

Major Stoner, professor turned British intelligence officer, sees three possibilities. Faust perhaps was joyriding in that bomber, as he claims. Or he’s on a reconnaissance mission for the German invasion. Or he’s a spy. Stoner must break Faust to learn the truth, no matter how it strains his old heart. He must save England, and his granddaughter.

Their battlefield is confined to a desktop. Only one of them can win. Someone must break. Someone must make a Deal with the Devil.

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