Author of adventure/thriller and horror fiction

CASTLES IN THE SKY Releases!

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Castles in the Sky, my WWII novel set during the air war over Europe, is now available to read in Kindle eBook, trade paperback, and audiobook!

From every corner of America, they crossed the Atlantic to destroy the Nazi war machine on its own turf: the B-17 bomber crews flying bloody bombing missions over northern Europe. On March 6, 1944, General Doolittle launched a massive operation he believed would change the air war. The largest air armada the Eighth Army Air Force had ever launched. The first full-scale daylight bombing of Berlin, capital of the Third Reich.

This horrifying battle would become known by the men who survived it as Black Monday.

From the author of Hell’s Eden, Strike, and the bestselling Crash Dive and Armorseries, Castles in The Sky tells the story of one such Flying Fortress crew. It’s a story of courage and grit in the face of impossible odds and the search for meaning in the madness of war. The 250th mission of the Eighth Army Air Force and the last for Pop’s Flying Circus.

You can get it here. Thanks for reading!

CASTLES IN THE SKY Available for Pre-Order!

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Happy to announce that Castles in The Sky, a WWII novel set during the air war over Europe, is now available for pre-order!

From every corner of America, they crossed the Atlantic to destroy the Nazi war machine on its own turf: the B-17 bomber crews flying bloody bombing missions over northern Europe. On March 6, 1944, General Doolittle launched a massive operation he believed would change the air war. The largest air armada the Eighth Army Air Force had ever launched. The first full-scale daylight bombing of Berlin, capital of the Third Reich.

This horrifying battle would become known by the men who survived it as Black Monday.

From the author of Hell’s Eden, Strike, and the bestselling Crash Dive and Armorseries, Castles in The Sky tells the story of one such Flying Fortress crew. It’s a story of courage and grit in the face of impossible odds and the search for meaning in the madness of war. The 250th mission of the Eighth Army Air Force and the last for Pop’s Flying Circus.

The book releases April 28, 2025 and will be available in Kindle eBook, audiobook, and trade paperback.

Check it out here. Thanks for reading!

ADOLESCENCE

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In the British Netflix miniseries ADOLESCENCE, a 13-year-old boy is arrested for murder. In four separate but linked stories, we see how the arrest impacted everyone around him and piece together what happened and why. It is a brutal, arresting watch for pure human drama, and it blew me away.

The story begins with police bursting into a home to arrest Jamie Miller on suspicion of savagely murdering his classmate Katie Leonard. Thus begins ADOLESCENCE in a breathless first episode that will have your blood boiling and shatter your nerves if you’re a parent. It looks like Jamie did it, but did he?

In the next three episodes, we see the police investigation at Jamie’s school, a psychologist questioning the boy at a detention center, and see how his family is coping and struggling for hope, answers, and peace.

Each episode is a single take, normally a technically ambitious but in these episodes a tremendous feat as we travel through a large, perfectly conceived realistic setting. Stephen Graham, who co-wrote and starred as Jamie’s dad, is no stranger to this type of filmmaking after doing BOILING POINT. That was set in a restaurant, though, and in ADOLESCENCE we follow the characters through an entire police station, high school, and town. You really feel like you’re there, and stretches of little mundane things happening take on the gravity of a dramatic pause rather than produce boredom. From timing to everything happening in the background, it’s all meticulously planned, though it doesn’t look it but instead feels completely natural.

The actors are just incredible, every single one absolutely nails it, with the great Stephen Graham leading the pack. The actor who plays Jamie, in particular, was a real standout.

The themes are as grueling as the drama. The horrible role of social media in teen’s lives, the bullying, incel subculture, never-ending hierarchy of popularity haves and have-nots, and how you think you’re doing parenting right but you never know the one thing that might have a negative influence on how your child sees the world. At the heart of this is boys and girls, young boys thinking girls have all the power, lacking positive mentor role models, and thinking you have to be aggressive to stand up for yourself. Beautifully done, none of the themes are explicit, instead offering the entire story as food for thought and discussion.

Overall, ADOLESCENCE is a powerful, heart-shredding, thought-providing, and very human drama. Highly recommended.

HELL’S EDEN Releases Today!

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Today’s the day! Hell’s Eden is now available to read at Amazon!

The Marines called it Starvation Island. The Imperial Japanese Army called it the Island of Death. The battle for Guadalcanal, which began in August 1942 and took six months to complete, saw the 1st Marine Division effectively cut off and under constant siege with few supplies. Marked by hunger, disease, massed nighttime bayonet charges by the enemy, and constant shelling and bombing, the campaign proved a turning point in the war.

From Craig DiLouie, author of the highly acclaimed Crash Dive and Armor series and other popular WWII fiction, Hell’s Eden tells the story of Guadalcanal through the eyes of a Marine and his rifle squad. Well-trained and tough but always looking to game the system for a little comfort, they tangle not only with the Japanese but the brass.

Hell’s Eden offers a gritty, savage, and humorous portrait of this crucial campaign that saw America on offense against the seemingly invincible Japanese Empire—examining what keeps men fighting in the face of harrowing odds.

The novel dropped today on Amazon and is now available to read in Kindle eBook, trade paperback, and audiobook formats.

I hope you enjoy the adventure. Thanks for reading!

AMERICAN PRIMEVAL

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Utterly violent, AMERICAN PRIMEVAL was a lot of fun to watch, though its relentless point about the savagery of the Old West becomes numbing at the end.

The series is about a group of people who find themselves at or near a lonely outpost serving traders and travelers in the Utah region, who find themselves entangled after a massacre based on the historical Mountain Meadows Massacre that occurred in 1857 during the Utah War. The result is a bloody clash of cultures between the U.S. government, the Mormon militia, and the local Shoshone tribe.

I would have loved to have had a seat in this pitch meeting. I can picture the writer pitching it as “BLOOD MERIDIAN with romance.”

The story mostly focuses on a woman traveling with her son, who must cross the mountains to find her husband. Fortunately, she falls in with a wagon train heading west to California. Unfortunately, she’s on the run from bounty hunters, and the wagon train is doomed. Enter a brooding loner who might just be able to get her across the savage wilderness. She teaches him to care about people again, while he teaches her that to survive, she will have to shed many of her civilized morals and become hard.

The scenery is of course gorgeous, the world building offering an authentic feel. The savagery feels on point for what is known about the Wild West and in particular this region during hysteria about persecution among the Mormons, which had established an armed theocracy under Brigham Young, as well as the Shoshone who are steadily getting squeezed out of their lands. The characters feel larger than life, and the dialogue and pacing are good. For those who like action, there is a body count that would make even Quentin Tarantino blush. The casting is great, the acting solid.

On the downside, it’s hard to say what the point of it all is other than, yeah, one had to be hard to survive the Wild West. The story is largely a tragedy, though it’s difficult to discern what if anything the filmmakers were trying to say other than showing a lot of people being bastards and killing each other in the Old West would be cool to watch.

Overall, I didn’t expect much and had fun with AMERICAN PRIMEVAL. It’s bloody and over the top, and if that doesn’t bother you, it’s quite a bit of fun.

HELL’S EDEN Now Available for Pre-Order

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Happy to announce that Hell’s Eden, a WWII novel set during the Guadalcanal campaign, is now available!

The Marines called it Starvation Island. The Imperial Japanese Army called it the Island of Death.

The battle for Guadalcanal, which began in August 1942 and took six months to complete, saw the 1st Marine Division effectively cut off and under constant siege with few supplies. Marked by hunger, disease, massed nighttime bayonet charges by the enemy, and constant shelling and bombing, the campaign proved a turning point in the war.

From Craig DiLouie, author of the highly acclaimed Crash Dive and Armor series and other popular WWII fiction, Hell’s Eden tells the story of Guadalcanal through the eyes of a Marine and his rifle squad. Well-trained and tough but always looking to game the system for a little comfort, they tangle not only with the Japanese but the brass.

Hell’s Eden offers a gritty, savage, and humorous portrait of this crucial campaign that saw America on offense against the seemingly invincible Japanese Empire—examining what keeps men fighting in the face of harrowing odds.

The book releases February 24, 2025 and will be available in Kindle eBook, audiobook, and trade paperback. It is available for pre-order now.

Check it out here. Thanks for reading!