Jack Tanner – Book 4

I’ve been a bit remiss recently in adding material to the site, for which many apologies.  I’ve got a bit to put on now, though, so over the next few days there should be various bits and pieces, not least the long promised transcription of my interview with Les Munro, which is now in.  I just need to go through it and give it a check.

It’s the new Jack Tanner book that’s been taking up most of my waking hours in recent weeks, which I’m due to hand in mid-March and which will then be published, in, I think, July.  Anyway, the jacket blurb is done, and work has begun on the jacket.  I’m including here a few of the options and if anyone has any opinions, please do let me know.  These are, though, very much work in progress.I was originally planning the fourth novel to be set during the Gazala battles of May-June 1942, with Tanner and Co getting stranded with the Free French at Bir Hacheim.  It would have given me the opportunity to re-introduce Chevannes, Tanner’s bette noir from The Odin Mission, but it was worrying me that yet again Tanner would find himself holding the fort while the rest of the army was in retreat, and then having to fight his way out.

So instead of put that one on the shelf for the time being – although I might return to it one day – and have instead set it between August and November 1942, during the lull, then the Battle of Alam Halfa, and then finally, the Battle of Alamein.  In between there are spies, murders, coastal raiding parties behind enemy lines, Polish femme fatales, and, I hope, a real thriller of a plot line. And, of course, the Brits win for a change.

Anyway, I must crack on.  The deadline looms and I’m still a fair way off…