Growing up in Western Washington, I would describe my childhood as typical middle-class 1960s Americana. My education, however, differed from that of most of my peers. In the fifth grade, following a rash of adolescent misadventures, my parents felt it would be best for everybody involved, especially the neighbors, if I went to a military academy of the Catholic boarding school variety.

It provided the discipline and structure I was missing at home, and I thrived in that environment. I soon made the ‘A’ honor roll, was the highest rank in my class each year, and became the drum major of the marching band.

I graduated from high school as a National Merit Scholar, went to the University of Washington, and entered the world of business. 

In late 2020, I found myself with time on my hands, something rare in my life. COVID had interrupted one of my business projects, and I was relaxing one Saturday with a novel in my hands. The author was highly published, with more than 200 million books sold. After the second chapter of improbable plotlines, grammatical errors, and impossible character actions, I tossed the book aside and muttered something I’d said before: “I can write better than that.”

Then I paused and said… No, I really think I can. With that, I went to my computer and asked myself, “What do you know about that could make an interesting story?”

My life had been full of experiences that gave me the foundation for Operation: Austin, the first Gary Booker Novel.

·      A business consultant and organizational development expert.

·      Owner and manager of construction teams that had completed more than 5,000 projects, including numerous computer-chip cleanrooms and virology labs.

·      Raised and trained performance working dogs, providing them to owners around the world. One of those working dogs also became an international grand champion show dog, a rare feat in the world of working dogs.

·      Created an international organization of individuals and companies to construct a new 20,000-building city in the Middle East to capitalize on a newly discovered oil and gas field.

·      Served on directing and advisory boards in more than 50 industries.

·      Performed corporate turnarounds in twenty companies.

·      Performed building code development and enforcement instruction to industry and government agencies in seven western states, which led to service on an attorney general’s task force investigating corruption between the building industry and government.

·      Assembled and trained several global business teams of more than 50,000 people spanning 50 nations.

Since that time, I have:

Served on a national security-related team of experts assembled to address an existential risk to the North American electrical grid.

         Wrote and published nine full-length novels in six years with seven more in development, plus a dozen short stories and novellas.

         Created a system that enables people to become authors of high-quality literature by self-performing the writing, publishing, and promotion of their work, in both written and audio formats.

         Most recently became an instructor on Udemy, offering a course titled Becoming an Author: The Master Class Series.

Perhaps most important to the theme of these books, my lifelong friend John had led a legendary life of adventure, and many were the times we sat and reminisced about our experiences. Mine were more on the business and
government side; his was deep into the dark world of casinos, debt collection,
and personal security for some of the world’s wealthiest people. In addition to
being the enforcer and debt collector for the Casino industry in Las Vegas, he was a hall-of-fame athlete, had fought a 600-pound bear with his hands, and helped train two world-champion boxers. Between the two of us, and a number of other friends and acquaintances who were mercenaries, courtesans, gigolos, human trafficking victims, and security agents for the world’s royal families and celebrity elites, I had more than ample experiences to draw from for a series of books.

About The Stories

There are several aspects of these books that I believe are unique. First, I took actual people and real events and wove them into a work of fiction. Then I decided that I would not soften, censor, or “Hollywoodize” them. As much as I could, I wanted them to represent how these hackers and mercenaries actually live, talk, and work. This eventually posed a challenge because, when I went to publish them, the platforms wanted them to be less realistic and graphic. They sought the adventures; they just wanted to avoid the details of the sex and violence of reality. I continue to believe that even though I chose not to provide many of the more grotesque details, writing about men and women who rescue trafficked girls requires some level of description in order to give readers a full sense of the experience.

Next, I wanted the chronology of the stories to be synchronized with the actual events that were happening when the story starts in the summer of 2019. Then I wanted to proceed forward in time from there. I’m not aware of any other group of books that does this: using real people and events to create fictional stories, plots, and characters who appear to be involved in, and even cause, the events to unfold as they did.

Finally, I didn’t want to simply clone the male-dominated storylines that are most common in this genre. I wanted to create female characters who were equal in value to men, but I also wanted them to be feminine and embrace traditional lives. I believe that this is essential to the survival of our species: that women be equal in value but not the same in their roles. As such, I created a group of women who embrace all aspects of life as women, not simply as alternative men.

And so, I give you these adventures and pray you enjoy reading them as much as I did in their creation.