Empty Quiver -- 30th Sept.

We have a release date for the latest Team Reaper story, Empty Quiver. It is expected to grace the virtual shelves on the 30th of September. 

Can't wait? I'll give you a sample of what is to come below. Enjoy.  

Chapter 1

Zabul Province, Afghanistan

“Talk to me, Reaper,” Cara’s even voice filled his head, coming through the ear-piece of his comms unit.

Six-foot-four, John ‘Reaper’ Kane, solidly built with black hair, currently with thick stubble on his tanned face, felt a rivulet of sweat trickle down his nose and fall through space, splashing onto the fine dust between his feet.

More of the salty water created a runnel down his muscular back, leaving a glistening trail over the Reaper tattoo that gave the ex-recon marine his name. His outstretched right hand was rock-steady with a Sig Sauer M17 handgun pointed across the cramped and stuffy room with almost impenetrable mud-brick walls.

“Reaper, you copy?” The voice was more insistent.

Kane depressed the talk button on his comms and said, “I’m a bit busy at the moment, Reaper Two.”

“Just so you know, our HVT is getting away in a white SUV. If we don’t move now, we’ll lose him.”

Cara Billings, callsign Reaper Two and the team’s sniper, was on overwatch while the rest of Team Reaper infiltrated the Zabul Province green zone.

“Deal with it.”

“You’re not coming?”

“No.”

“What about Axe?”

“He’s busy too,” Kane said, glancing down briefly at the thick beard of the prone figure in the deep hole at his feet, before returning his gaze to the job at hand.

“Copy that. Out.”

“Now,” sighed Kane. “Where were we?”

“You die, infidel,” sneered a thick-bearded Afghan insurgent, a thin bead of sweat on his brow, caused by a combination the heat and the tense anxiety of the situation. His eyes flicked about nervously but returned to center on Kane.

“Just hold on a moment, Ahab, before you go and clack off that suicide vest you’re wearing. Maybe we can discuss this calmly, and perhaps all of us can walk away alive.”

“My name is not Ahab,” the Afghani hissed. “It is Aarash.”

“Close. I never was much good with my pronunciation.”

Kane’s team had come into Zabul Province after Fahim Noor. Leader of the local insurgent population and owner of the majority of vast poppy fields which provided the funds for all his activities, both at home and abroad.

The compound had been breached by Kane and his team, sans Cara, who was presently two-hundred meters outside the green zone on the slope of a steep hill, the crosshairs of her scope on the white SUV containing their high-value target.

On entry, Brick and Arenas had swept left while Kane and Axe went in the opposite direction. Which had brought them to their current position; facing an Afghani suicide bomber with his thumb on the trigger, while Axe took a nap in the hole they’d found in the floor of the room.

Kane couldn’t be certain whether his friend was even alive. He knew the big ex-recon marine sniper had taken a round; he just wasn’t sure where.

“Ahab –”

“Aarash!” came the shouted response of the sweating man.

Kane nodded. He could tell the man didn’t want to die. He could almost smell the fear emanating from every pore of the darkened skin. The Team Reaper commander nodded. “Aarash. You don’t want to die, just like me, yeah?”

“I would die in a heartbeat for the Prophet.”

“And you will if you take your finger off that fucking button. Think about it. Do you have a family, Aarash?”

“What about them?”

“Who will take care of them after you are gone?”

Aarash glanced at a closed door to his left. “They will join me in Paradise.”

Son of a bitch, the crazy bastard’s family were in the next room. “You want to kill them too?”

“If it is Allah’s will.”

“Reaper One? Zero. Copy?”

The inquiry from Kane’s immediate superior Luis Ferrero, who also commanded the Bravo element of the Worldwide Drug Initiative, went unanswered. A few heartbeats later, he came back again. “Reaper One? Zero. Copy?”

Once again Kane pressed the talk button on his comms without taking his eyes from the man before him. “Can’t talk right now, Zero. Trying to defuse a situation.”

“What kind of situation, Reaper?”

“The kind that goes boom.”

“Do you need assistance, Reaper One?” another voice chimed in.

“Negative, ma’am,” Kane said to General Mary Thurston. “Assistance won’t help this time.”

“Copy. Good luck.”

“I am through talking to you, infidel,” Aarash snarled vehemently, removing his thumb from the red trigger button.

“Empty Quiver”, two words that will make the world shudder.

The theft of nuclear weapons in Pakistan, a terrorist attack in India, the kidnapping of a nuclear scientist, and the Russian FSB. All become entwined in a twisted plot that will come to a head in England on one of the nation’s most famous days.

Wrong place, wrong time …

But Team Reaper isn’t known for shying away from a fight. Especially one that could devastate a nation, with international implications, by the biggest terrorist attack the world has ever seen.

Countdown to doomsday …

Once again Team Reaper races across the globe in an action-packed tale which will have the reader turning pages so fast their fingers will feel like they’re on fire.

The price of failure is the death of thousands.

They’re coming.

Fear the Reaper!

Arisen

You Can't Kill the Dead!

When the Zombie Apocalypse came, one country had shut down its borders in response to a major terrorist attack. Now Fortress Britain is the last bastion of the living.

And one international team of supremely elite special operators are humanity's last best hope for survival. Supremely trained and armed, always the most skilled, resolved, and unstoppable amongst us, now the commandos of Alpha team are tasked with one last desperate operation.

They must cross the Atlantic aboard the world's only remaining supercarrier and insert by air into the very middle of a dead continent, all in search of a rumored vaccine that might bring humanity back from the brink. But their op goes dangerously wrong from the start, with their team scattered to hell and back, and their target site a dry hole. Now they must fight their way on foot through a city of 3 million ravening dead guys, in search of an underground bunker that might hold the Last Man on Earth. But these undead will not be like any Zulus they have ever fought before - and they surround their new target in a writhing ring of death 30 feet high on all sides...

Don't start reading these books unless you have two things, a love of non-stop action, and time. Sure some might look at this series and say "Zombies, WTF?". But let me tell you this series is fantastic!

14 books of pure adrenaline rush plus more. Above is the second instalment which I have just finished reading.

Fuchs and James have got everything. An island fortress, tier one operators, the last known surviving supercarrier, a mission which seems beyond all realms of possibility, and the DEAD. Millions of them.

The first eight were written by Fuchs and James but nine onwards were taken over by just Fuchs himself under the publishing name of  "Complete & Total Asskicking Books" which describes them perfectly.

For those who like their stories to be over in one instalment don't expect that here, cliffhangers abound in such a way that it makes you want to keep going on to the next book. I know some people don't like this and consider it a gimmick to keep customers buying more books.

 

+

They are well written with great dialogue, the pages splattered with zombie goo, the operators are like super heroes on steroids, and of course not everyone makes it home. Lets face it, if you want to save the world, people are going to die. 

Readers call the ARISEN series: "A hundred mile an hour thrill ride" ... "breathtaking - absolutely fantastic action" ... "the most exhilarating military zombie series there is" ... "Amazing and heart-wrenching at the same time - the characters feel like family" ... "Perhaps the best in this genre on the planet... and I've read most. You would be hard pressed to find a more thrilling ride" ... "Beyond good - pure action, beginning to end" ... "the fastest, scariest, most spine-tingling, adrenaline-pumping roller-coaster ride of a lifetime" ... "Truly incredible storyweaving" ... "Hands down THE BEST zombie series, nay, dare I say BOOK series, I have ever read" ... "You feel like the explosions are going off beside your head" ... "you never know what the hell is coming at you next" ... "Every time I think it cannot get any better, BAM!" ... "the excitement and intricacy blew my mind" ... "Wild ride. Buy your ticket."

Then there are whispers that there are negotiations going on for television series/movies rights. I for one hope that this comes to fruition because I'll be there munching on the popcorn enjoying the thrill ride that is -- Arisen!

You'll find the website Here.

Headlines!

MEXICO CITY — The Mexican police found nine bodies hanging from an overpass Thursday alongside a drug cartel banner threatening rivals, and seven more corpses hacked up and dumped by the road nearby. Just down the road were three more bodies, for a total of 19.

Courtesy of the NYT. 

Maps from a BBC article.

The Sinaloa cartel

Founded in the late 1980s, the Sinaloa cartel headed by Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán has long been considered Mexico's most powerful criminal organisation.

Having outfought several rival groups, the Sinaloa cartel dominates much of north-west Mexico and makes billions of dollars from trafficking illicit narcotics to the United States, Europe and Asia.

The Jalisco New Generation

Sinaloa's strongest competitor is its former armed wing, the Jalisco New Generation cartel. Formed around 2010, the Jalisco cartel has expanded rapidly and aggressively across Mexico and is now challenging Sinaloa for control of strategic areas, including Tijuana and the port of Manzanillo. 

The Jalisco cartel is blamed for a series of attacks on security forces and public officials, including downing an army helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade in 2015. Mexico's Attorney General Raul Cervantes declared it the nation's largest criminal organisation in 2017. 

What happened to Mexico's other major players?

In eastern Mexico, the Gulf cartel and their fearsome former allies Los Zetas have been weakened by killings and arrests of top leaders, leading to splits within both groups. 

In western Michoacán state, the pseudo-religious Knights Templar and La Familia cartels have been largely vanquished by vigilante groups, although the region remains contested by their remnants and several newer gangs.

To the north, the once mighty Juárez, Tijuana and Beltrán-Leyva cartels have all been weakened by Sinaloa cartel offensives.

Are things better or worse than they were?

The level of violence dropped after the election of President Enrique Peña Nieto in 2012, but it has shot up dramatically in the last two years, with 2017 on course to be the worst year on record.

Activists and journalists are routinely murdered, while corruption and impunity remain rampant.

How violent are the cartels?

Mexico's cartels are notorious for their extreme violence. Beheadings and torture have become commonplace over the past decade. Victims are sometimes hung from bridges or dissolved in barrels of acid. Some cartels post graphic execution videos on social media to intimidate their enemies.

How many people have died?

Mexico registered more than 200,000 murders from January 2007 to December 2016, according to government records. More than 30,000 people are classified as having disappeared in that same timeframe.

2017 was the most violent year in two decades, with more than 25,000 murders, official figures suggest.

Curtesy of the BBC- 27 March 2018 

Below is an article I found from the New York Post. Published Jan 30.

Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador declared the end of his country’s “war” on drugs Wednesday — saying his administration would no longer prioritize the prosecution of kingpins.

His statement came as US prosecutors urged jurors in Brooklyn to convict infamous Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.

“There is no war, officially there is no more war,” López Obrador said in response to a question from a reporter regarding the lack of kingpin arrests since he took office, according to AFP.

“We want peace, we are going to get peace. We haven’t detained capos, because that is not our principal mission. The principal mission of the government is to guarantee public security.”

Guzman, 61, was extradited to the US in January 2017 — when López Obrador’s predecessor, President Enrique Peña Nieto, was in office — where he is on trial for his role as a leader of the notorious Sinaloa Cartel.

When Mexican authorities recaptured the notorious cocaine smuggler a year earlier, Peña Nieto lavished praise on the law enforcement officers who made the collar, saying they were “a source of pride” for the nation.

But López Obrador said law enforcement will now instead focus on reducing homicide rates.

Guzman’s defense during his trial in Brooklyn has largely focused on the claim that he is merely a “scapegoat,” while his partner in crime, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, remains at large and is believed to be hiding out in Mexico.

Witnesses and lawyers have also made allegations of government bribery and corruption, with prosecutors claiming in court documents that the Sinloa Cartel paid off a former campaign associate of López Obrador during his first failed run for the presidency in 2006.

Government witnesses have also testified that the cartel paid Peña Nieto $100 million in 2012 — although the ex-president denies those allegations.

The above articles are not my own and I have given credit to the places they came from.

Fear The Reaper

Fear The Reaper!

Here we are a dedicated Team Reaper blog at last. It's taken a while but as you can see from the books, we've been busy.
OK, an update on what has been happening of late. Brian Drake has his new Reaper book out and will be starting on another soon I'm told. Another cracker of a read, you can find it here.

Also I heard on the grapevine today that Mark Allen has finished his first Giant Reaper. A singular story featuring John "Reaper" Kane called, "Tooth and Nail".

Readers can expect more of these over time with plans to do them with other individual team members.

Once we get a cover I'll post it so we can all enjoy it.

Now, to the wonderful readers who have taken the time to buy, read, and review. A big thank you, even if you didn't like the books, that's fine. I realize that they might not be to everyone's liking.

To those of you who did, expect more of the pulse-pounding action that you love. I'm currently two-thirds of the way through "Empty Quiver" and rocketing to an explosive ending.

When I first started this venture I wasn't sure how it would go, but thanks to the wonderful people at Wolfpack Publishing, it has been fantastic. For instance, in the first 4 months of its existence, Retribution had over 2,700,000 pages read. (I used to get excited at 70,000 per month).

The Team at Team Reaper

Brent:

A relative newcomer to the world of writing, Brent Towns self-published his first book, a western, in 2015. Last Stand in Sanctuary took him two years to write. His first hardcover book, a Black Horse Western, was published the following year.

Since then, he has written a further 26 western stories, including some in collaboration with British western author, Ben Bridges.

Also, he has written the novelization to the upcoming 2019 movie from One-Eyed Horse Productions, titled, Bill Tilghman and the Outlaws. Not bad for an Australian author, he thinks.

Brent Towns has also scripted three Commando Comics with another two to come.

He says, “The obvious next step for me was to venture into the world of men’s action/adventure/thriller stories. Thus, Team Reaper was born.”

A country town in Queensland, Australia, is where Brent lives with his wife and son.

In the past, he worked as a seaweed factory worker, a knife-hand in an abattoir, mowed lawns and tidied gardens, worked in caravan parks, and worked in the hire industry. And now, as well as writing books, Brent is a home tutor for his son doing distance education.

Brent’s love of reading used to take over his life, now it’s writing that does that; often sitting up until the small hours, bashing away at his tortured keyboard where he loses himself in the world of fiction.

Brian: 

A twenty-five year veteran of radio and television broadcasting, Brian Drake has spent his career in San Francisco where he’s filled writing, producing, and reporting duties with stations such as KPIX-TV, KCBS, KQED, among many others.  Currently carrying out sports and traffic reporting duties for Bloomberg 960, Brian Drake spends time between reports and carefully guarded morning and evening hours cranking out action/adventure tales.  A love of reading when he was younger inspired him to create his own stories, and he sold his first short story, “The Desperate Minutes,” to an obscure webzine when he was 25 (more years ago than he cares to remember, so don’t ask).  Many more short story sales followed before he expanded to novels, entering the self-publishing field in 2010, and quickly building enough of a following to attract the attention of several publishers and other writing professionals.  Brian Drake lives in California with his wife and two cats, and when he’s not writing he is usually blasting along the back roads in his Corvette with his wife telling him not to drive so fast, but the engine is so loud he usually can’t hear her. 

Mark:

Mark Allen was raised by an ancient clan of ruthless ninjas and now that he has revealed this dark secret, he will most likely be dead by tomorrow for breaking the sacred oath of silence. The ninjas take this stuff very seriously.

When not practicing his shuriken-throwing techniques or browsing flea markets for a new katana, Mark writes action fiction. He prefers his pose to pack a punch, likes his heroes to sport twin Micro-Uzis a la Chuck Norris in Invasion USA, and firmly believes there is no such thing as too many headshots in a novel.

He started writing “guns ‘n’ guts” (his term for the action genre) at the not-so-tender age of 16 and soon won his first regional short story contest. His debut action novel, The Assassin’s Prayer, was optioned by Showtime for a direct-to-cable movie. When that didn’t pan out, he published the book on Amazon to great success, moving over 10,000 copies in its first year, thanks to its visceral combination of raw, redemptive drama mixed with unflinching violence.

Now, as part of the Wolfpack team, Mark Allen looks forward to bringing his bloody brand of gun-slinging, bullet-blasting mayhem to the action-reading masses.

Mark currently resides in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York with a wife who doubts his ninja skills because he’s always slicing his fingers while chopping veggies, two daughters who refuse to take tae kwon do, let alone ninjitsu, and enough firepower to ensure that he is never bothered by door-to-door salesmen.