About the Author - Taylor served with the 101^st Airborne Division as a platoon leader and battalion commander. Airborne and air assault qualified, a scuba diver and trained as a system engineer, he designed military command and control systems in civilian life before he turned to writing military thrillers. Using his background in nuclear weapons and extensive travel in the Far and Middle East, Europe and across the States, he packs a ton of adventure into an action-filled page-turner. For more than you ever wanted to know about Taylor, click here.

 (Photo is not current - taken in the Fall of 1965 while on a scenic tour of Southwest Asia as a member of the Screaming Eagle's 1st Brigade task force. Click HERE for a more recent photo.)

Check out the Bastogne Magazine -  the 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) monthly magazine's latest edition.

Coming soon: Missing Sticks - a new novel about Screaming Eagles of the 101st Airborne Division on D-Day.

101st Airborne Division Association 2008 Reunion News

MYSTERY FLORIDA

With roots in the writing of John D. McDonald, Mystery Florida is a gathering of authors and readers who believe in the legacy of  JDM's philosophies - great stories, great characters, and an appreciation for Florida's environment.

Taylor and many other authors will be enjoying the sun and sea at the 2008 Mystery Florida Conference June 6-7, on Lido Key on the beach off Sarasota, Florida. Supported by Circle Books on Armand Circle, you can join the authors and mystery readers in the Mystery Mingle on Friday evening, a part of one of the most intimate and enjoyable writing conferences around.

The photo on the left is from the 2006 Mystery Florida. Recognize any of your favorite authors?

BOOKS

Gulf Winds won First Place in the Mystery/Thriller (Unpublished) category of the Florida Writers Association 2007 Royal Palm Literary Awards Contest.

Gulf Winds introduces Uly Grant, a recently returned veteran of the war in Iraq, who is searching for a bit of tranquility among the Florida mangroves and manatees.

Uly is tough, but a roadside bomb on the road to Baghdad killed his best friend and left him with a busted leg and Flash, a retired champion greyhound. (Click here to read the combat scene in Iraq - the prologue not included in the final manuscript.) In Gulf Winds Grant has returned to his old home along the banks of the Homosassa River and his life as a fishing guide in the waters in and around the Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge where, as you might suspect, a woman leads him astray and conspiracies abound.

Gulf Winds is looking for a publisher at this time. Click HERE for more about Flash and research in Homosassa and Chassahowitzka along the Florida Gulf coast.

Behind the Green Water

Devon sometimes wished he were back in the Carolina swamps puffing his grandpa's pipe instead of tromping the Iraqi deserts and mountains with the French woman. Before the invasion of Iraq, US Army Major Nash Devon is sent into the Northern Iraq Sanctuary Zone on a search for Saddam's weapons of mass destruction where he discovers a nuclear conspiracy that includes America's allies. A thriller with roots in the first Gulf War, Behind the Green Water foretells the crisis between nuclear-capable nations of the Middle East and the religious conflicts that feed the fires of destruction. Behind the Green Water, although fictional, may help you understand the tensions and terror American and Allied forces are trying to keep at bay. Behind the Green Water explores the mystery of Christ and his family coupled with a mystery that predates Leonardo.

From a member of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) while operating out of Mosel, Iraq across the same locales of Behind the Green Water:  "...The book is a great read (a lot like Clancy)..."

From Down Under:"...I find myself thinking about them sometimes, wondering if it would all work out in the end for them and then I laugh to myself, knowing firstly that it would have been fine and secondly that I am even thinking about 3 people that do not really exist. Not many writers have the ability to pull your soul into their stories."  - Felicity Baker, Rolling Sea Reviews
 

Click on the cover for more details about the writing of Behind the Green Water, the people and places in the story.
Click HERE to order directly the eBook from the publisher.
Click HERE to order directly from Amazon.com.
Or ask your local book seller to order if not in stock  - Trade Paperback ISBN 0-7599-4299-4
new ISBN-13:  978-0-7599-4299-8
Active Duty and Retired Military - Available in many AAFES Stores on the shelf - or ask to order.

Flash of Emerald

Flash of Emerald begins with Corporal Harry Stoner as a young Special Forces soldier thrust into the middle of the disastrous and short-lived Cuban counter-revolution, then takes you with an far older and, perhaps wiser, Stoner when he is summoned from his Washington DIA office to revisit the seamy side of Tampa's Ybor City, drawn into the middle of a  drugs-for-arms transaction. Not just guns, this time the stakes are higher - a nuclear weapon stolen by fanatical terrorists, the beginning of a wild ride across today's South Florida and the Florida Keys where romance with a member of the Conch Republic threatens to sidetrack his mission.

Click on the cover for more details about the writing of Flash of Emerald, the people and places in the story.
Click HERE to order the eBook directly from the publisher.
Click HERE to order directly from Amazon.com.
Or ask your local book seller to order if not in stock - Trade Paperback ISBN 0-7599-4288-9
new ISBN-13:  978-0-7599-4288-2
Active Duty and Retired Military - Available in many AAFES Stores on the shelf - or ask to order.

Did you read Behind the Green Water and are interested in the sequel? Let me know if you have any suggestions as I build the plot - jmt.

Amazon.com Shorts

Mac Dawson and Jacqueline Grayson – are space wobblers – construction crew on the International Space Station - ISS, and about to enter a series of events that will enthrall readers. The continuing story will expand from the ISS to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. Subsequent chapters will encompass intrigue, romance and dangerous betrayals as Mac and his partner Jacqueline evolve as leaders in the burgeoning societies of emerging space colonies.

From the author: I will never get to Mars- except in my mind. Someday, someone will. I want my stories to take me and the readers to outer space, to live the excitement, thrills and adventure while testing Man’s reach toward the boundless limits of Space.

Life and Death is available on Amazon.com as a downloadable Short, another evolution in the world of electronic publishing.

Articles about Central Command and the Rapid Deployment Task Force operations in the Middle East, and Hemingway and Key West. If you landed here on a genealogical search for Taylors, try The Taylors of North Carolina.

Dig deep and you will find a bunch of  Vietnam photos and more recent events. Photos of the 101st Airborne Division from Vietnam in the 1960's (on the right, Vikki Carr and Danny Kaye visiting with 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division soldiers at Phan Thiet around December 1965),  and more.

If you are interested in publishing your own book, see a historical perspective at Publishing - You or Them and a more current view at Blue Eagle Press.

Use a PDA? Read a book on your PDA, Kimble, Sony Reader or your smart phone while you are at the doctor's office? Want to publish electronically? Learn more about eBooks and electronic publishing at ePublish.

Links

 © 2000-2008 John M. Taylor
Click HERE to contact the author and HERE to return to his Home Page
Excerpts may be used in electronic or print media with credit to John M. Taylor