THEY BIRTH OF THEY CALL ME THE MERCENARY part 2

            Hank Frost and Bess Stallman meet in book number one, THE KILLER GENESIS and it was, of course, love at first sight. Well, the love at first sight business doesn’t occur until after all the killing, torturing, stabbing, running through jungles and blowing up stuff winds down a bit and they actually have time to have a conversation, except, the conversation is rather one sided since she is in shock from her ordeal and won’t speak.  She gets over it.  Bess, a well respected international journalist, spends the entire series trying to keep up her career, convince Frost how cute their babies would be and staying alive and out of the hands of the enemy, since every looney terrorist and blood crazed maniac wants Frost and his inner circle of friends dead.  She’s aware from the start that wherever his next assignment takes him, there will be “a woman” who will share his bed, tent or whatever but she knows that he will always come back to her.  Rich or poor, stabbed or shot, she loves him.

            Mike O’Hara started out as a necessity for the series.  Every time Frost got close enough to one of the supporting characters to perhaps sustain a friendship, we killed that character off.  Maybe we just didn’t think they were good enough for him.  Maybe we couldn’t see these characters getting along with Bess.  Whatever the reason, Frost always went home alone; alone, until the fifth book, CANADIAN KILLING GROUND.  Frost, with Bess’s help is reuniting a seven year old boy with his father, who is working on “top secret stuff” in Canada.  Global terrorists, PLO, Israeli Intelligence, just your run-of-the- mill bad guys and both fake and real FBI agents all bloody the waters for what was supposed to be a fluff job and vacation with Bess.  O’Hara, a real FBI agent in the story, took on the voice and physical characteristics of the late actor, Robert Culp.  At the end of the story, Frost and O’Hara promise to look each other up.  Jerry and I just knew that this had to happen.  Frost, Bess and O’Hara -- friends forever.

            One of the things that made this series different was that considering all the beheadings, maiming, shootings and buckets of blood, we tried to keep it light.  Hank Frost would never explain how he really had lost his eye.  Instead, he would make up stupid jokes involving cannibals, depitting machines, nose picking, etc.  We might start a story, but then out kids, Jason and Samantha would jump in and come up with crazy embellishments that made the jokes unique. Some people have used other words besides unique.    Whatever, it was a fun series to write.  It wasn’t exactly what the publishers wanted but they let us keep writing Hank Frost our way.

            THEY CALL ME THE MERCENARY series is available through Speaking Volumes www.speakingvolumes.us in print and ebook format as well as audio.