Future Story?

I noticed this story today, originally reported by a Bosnian news site, about Serbian Honour, a Russian-backed Serbian nationalist paramilitary group based in Bosnia. Its members have reportedly been trained in Serbia, have combat experience fighting alongside the  pro-Russian separatist  rebels in Ukraine, and are opposed to NATO's presence in the Balkans.  The Russian embassy and the semi-autonomous Serbian government in Bosnia have denied that this group exists.  

As a result of the  1995 Dayton Accords, Bosnia has one of the most complicated political systems in the world. To make a long story short, the country is divided into semi-autonomous entities: the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is comprised of Bosniaks and Croats who are in favor of NATO membership, and the Republika Sprska, which governs the Serbs who are opposed to NATO membership. Oh, and to confuse matters further, Bosnia's presidency is shared by three people, a Bosniak, a Croat, and a Serb.
 
It's easy to envision a scenario resembling the situation in Ukraine, where Bosnia becomes fragmented, with a pro-Russian Slavic territory under Serbian or Russian protection.  

As I described in my book SCORPION II, Russia also backed the 2016 coup attempt by Serbian paramilitaries in Montenegro. Recently, Russia has become increasingly active in the Balkans, hoping to curb Western influence in the region.  

I definitely see a future story here. I've been wanting to do one set in the Balkans, a region/subject that tends to be ignored by most writers (Tom Wood's A Time To Die, and Frederick Forsyth's Avenger being the only exceptions that come immediately to mind, plus a couple old Mack Bolan novels like Blood Circle). So perhaps Avery will be visiting Bosnia soon, if I decide to keep him around. 

UPDATE: Less than a day after I wrote this post, a Serbian politician, who was mediating talks to normalize relations between Serbia and its break-away province Kosovo, was assassinated.

Major Book Recomendation!

WITHOUT MERCY by Colonel David Hunt and RJ Pineiro. 

Read it now. 

Amazon is presently selling this 500 page hardcover at 58% off the retail price, which means it's cheaper than the ebook right now. That's 500 pages of a highly entertaining, realistic plot packed with a huge cast of believable characters, as well as plenty of authentic details and violent, gritty action. The books opens with a nuclear attack on Bagram air base in Afghanistan and takes off from there. You will not be disappointed.

After finishing the book, I had to check to see if the authors have any more books in the works, and am pleased to see they have a sequel (actually, more like a prequel) coming out later this year.

Suggested Upcoming Non-Fiction

I've made a few posts recently about other novels I recommend, but the books I'm most looking forward to this year are non-fiction.

In February, Steve Coll's Directorate S: The CIA and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan will be published. It's apparently a "sequel" of sorts of Coll's Ghost Wars, an extensive volume on CIA operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan from the Soviet Union's Afghan invasion up  to 9/11. Read together, these two hefty volumes will probably contain everything you'd ever want or need to know about  US foreign policy and intelligence operations concerning Afghanistan and Pakistan over the past thirty years. If you have an interest in the subject matter, then Coll's books are required reading.

Also in February, Full Battle Rattle will be published, the memoirs of a Muslim Green Beret who was involved with the attempted rescue of the embassy hostages in Iran, spying on Hezbollah in Lebanon, and fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. It's co-written with Ralph Pezzullo, who has written a number of other CIA/special forces memoirs, notably Jawbreaker with Gary Berntsen, as well as the very addictive SEAL Team Six series of novels with Don Mann.

And later in the year, The Spy Who Was Left Behind: Russia, The New Cold War, and the True Story of the Assassination of a CIA Agent will be published. I'm unfamiliar with the author, Michael Pullara, but the book will be about the assassination of CIA station chief Freddie Woodruff in the former Soviet republic of Georgia in 1993. The incident and the conclusions of the subsequent investigation became the subject of controversy and are believed by many (including a Georgian interior minister in 2013) to raise more questions than satisfactory answers concerning Woodruff's murder. I mentioned this little known bit of Cold War lore in my book SCORPION II, which is largely set in Georgia.