Research for a fictional novel can be daunting. However, before I started writing my debut novel Raging Falcon, I was already intimately familiar with the subject matter. But, in the spirit of originality, I endeavored to create a twist on the traditional fictional tropes one encounters in Ian Fleming’s James Bond series. Readers of this type of action adventure story are familiar with the dashing hero who saves the world, and at the end always gets the girl-all the while sipping martinis, ‘shaken not stirred’.

What if I mused, this sort of character was female, imbued with all the intrepidly vivid characteristics one expects of 007?

The result is Larissa Ustinov, a daringly aggressive female intelligence agent, swiftly developing a case of dangerous self-awareness. Unlike Mr. Bond, she begins to question the consequences of what she does for a living, and the selfish ambitions harbored by the ungrateful master she is sworn to serve, Major Stacey Truman Keogh.

During my research concerning CIA and the mysterious craft of counter-intelligence, I discovered public perceptions about America’s premiere spy agency, may be, in fact, bunk! In truth, CIA is not an intelligence gathering agency at all. Rather, they act as catalysts for the major news stories everyone observes reported nightly from their television sets. In other words, they create history, fostering order out of deliberate chaos. CIA causes epic political mayhem, resulting in a predictable public outcry for safety, security, and solutions. America’s ‘war on terror’ has indeed been profitable for America’s premier spy agency. Government agencies like CIA always greatly benefit from enemies both real and imagined.  

During my research, I encountered stunning corroboration, straight from one of the agency’s former directors, William Casey. Casey was asked while taking the stand before Senate committee chaired by Senator Frank Church if CIA embedded agents in American corporate newsrooms.

“We are confident our public ‘disinformation’ campaigns are working at maximum efficiency,” he blurted before the stunned committee gathering. “It has been statistically proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, everything the public thinks it believes about the reality of American politics, is undeniably false!”

Due to Casey’s public testimony, the hallowed legacy of CIA, the Cadillac of government ‘alphabet’ agencies, was reduced to utter ashes in one afternoon!  

Per Casey, and Freedom of Information files, CIA has controlled the American media for decades, through a program begun back in the late nineteen-sixties, called ‘Project Mockingbird’. This project used blackmail of corporate news executives, and even planted agents disguised as journalists right inside the bowels of every major news room. The agency gained an unassailable advantage in becoming the victors that rewrote American history. Orwell was indeed prophetic-whoever controls the past, controls the future!

When I began to meticulously conceive the premise for Raging Falcon, I imagined a completely independent spy agency taking proxy control of the US government through blackmail, covert tactics, and political and military espionage. ‘Blue Jasmine Group’ specializes in what is called counter-intelligence, the craft of psychological operations. In Raging Falcon, all the world is a Shakespearean stage, filled with ‘crisis actors’, professional revolutionaries, props and stage directors. And, the public never suspects or questions the events of American history may be scripted melodrama-like some Hollywood movie. They never suspect that the tragic headlines of the day-Sandy Hook massacre, Boston bombing, might be staged military drills, reported as actual events!

This, in turn, brings up a fascinating scenario for one to ponder. What if, all the ghastly terror events, including 9/11, were not what they appeared to be? What if, the world isn’t really the violent place portrayed on television-that it is, contrary to manipulated public perception, peaceful. What if, the alleged terrorists, ISIS, al-Qaida, were merely enemies not real, but imagined, cooked up by the counter-intelligence brain trusts housed in Langley, Virginia?

However, Raging Falcon isn’t all about political and military espionage. In fact, there is romance-a taboo love triangle! Larissa Ustinov, like the classic James Bond, uses sexual wiles to seduce,and to manipulate. But, she conducts an ongoing torrid affair with the not so happily married ‘Iron Major’ Stacey Keogh. And, with perhaps her maternal instincts getting the best of her, she falls in love with the Major’s young son, Jim.

All this, in combination with a memorable cast of complex characters embroiled in the mythic struggle of good versus evil, makes Raging Falcon an epic saga of betrayal, spiritual transcendence, and ultimately, moral redemption not to be missed!   

Our thanks to Steven Perkins for this exciting guest post. Steven is a participating author of Mystery Thriller Week and we are honored to have him joining us.  Raging Falcon is his debut novel and it is available in the book Cellar during MTW.  His books are also available on Amazon.