Category Archives: Spy novels

by Barry Kelly | October 27, 2014 · 7:35 am

INSIGHTS 168: TERRORISM AND YOU

There are only two subjects I put ahead of terrorism — freedom and the economy — and they are hard to separate. Terrorism will be with us for a long time. The “Red Army,” the Baader Mienhof gang, Black September and Abu Nidal’s PFLP (the Palestine Front for the Liberation of Palestine) never had the power and support that Islamic Radical Islam enjoys today under its various names. There are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world today. In nearly 50 countries they are a majority. The goal of radical Islam is not to disrupt Western nations. The goal is world domination. A world that lives under Sharia law. That includes you, your children, and grandchildren. So don’t you think you should know more about it than news media sound bites?

I have followed this subject for several decades as a CIA officer, a special assistant to President Reagan with responsibilities of being his point on terrorism and intelligence, and from the vantage point of several field assignments, including Vietnam, South Asia, and the Middle East. Much of my knowledge and experience is contained in the novels I have written. Of course, I would like to be a best-selling author but also I have knowledge I want to share with my readers. My first two novels, “Justice Beyond Law” and “Justice Without Mercy,” take the reader through the setup of terrorist cells and targets including the recruitment and training of Americans by Islamists to attack soft targets in America. The novels also show that the Obama administration’s blind reliance on “law and order” tactics cannot win the war against terrorism.

My last novel, “Run to Freedom,” contains a fictional dialogue between two KGB officers in a spy school outside Moscow discussing the tactics and strategy of terrorism. The reader gets to follow the terrorists and their opposition step by step until the conclusion. It is fiction but the operational planning on both sides is guided by real experience and nothing is beyond the realm of the possible.

I’m am now writing a fifth novel with the same characters. I now call this story “Quiet Justice.” This novel won’t be published for a few more months. It will feature ISIS terrorism activity in America.

Meeting with President Reagan, Vice President Bush, Deputy National Security Adviser Frank Carlucci and General Colin Powell in the Oval Office.

This blog is written by the author of the Jack Brandon novels. The author (pictured far right) has 27 years of government service, including two years serving President Ronald Reagan (middle left) in the 1980s as an adviser. His books can be found on Amazon, Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble, Nook or ordered through your local book store. Visit me on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/factsandfictions and follow me on Twitter @factsfictions80.

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Filed under Action thrillers, Barry Kelly, Books, Conservative views, Intelligence & Politics, Spy novels, Terrorism

by Barry Kelly | May 21, 2014 · 7:35 am

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS 115

NOT JUST STORIES

I’m getting ready to publish my first non fiction book, “INSIGHTS — THE TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICA” Is This What We Fought For?” The message in this book is clear. The transformation of America is happening now and most of our population doesn’t understand what is happening or what to do about it.

This book will make the process clear for anyone who reads it. Although my four action novels are mainly tales from a storyteller, they also contained a messages that help readers understand the law and order process and how terrorists and intelligence operatives go about their missions. This increased awareness will help readers recognize dangerous situations before they happen.

My first novel, Justice Beyond law, shows how a renegade KGB officer uses an abandoned network of KGB agents infiltrated into America years ago.

“Justice Beyond Law”

The method Yuri, the renegade KGB officer, uses to turn his network into a profit-making enterprise and to manage his diverse network with agents of different skills is more than plausible. The methods he uses strain the traditional law-and-order approach to terrorism. The traditional approach involves the collection of evidence that will stand up in a court system bound to provide the protections of our Constitution and the rules of due process to all residents, legal or illegal. The collection period is followed by an indictment, the issue of warrants, an arrest and finally a trial. An immense effort over a long period but a very important element of our individual rights. The heroes of this novel believe when dealing with terrorists who are in the country illegally, sometimes the safety of our people requires faster action then the law and order process allow.

The second novel, Justice Without Mercy, shows the process an extremist muslim group like al Qaeda might use to set up a series of

Justice without Mercy

terrorist acts in America to weaken the resolve of the people and lessen their trust in government to protect them. The plot in this novel is more probable than most people believe. Traditional law and order process is not capable of dealing with the fast-moving action of terrorism in the homeland. The law and order process pushed by the Obama administration, particularly by the attorney general, is more political than an effective counter-terrorist approach. There is a war brought by Islamic jihadists against us. It needs to be fought with a similar approach. Foreign jihadists don’t qualify for the protections of our constitution.

Shades of Justice deals with human trafficking that can be a profit-making business both for terrorist organizations and criminals. Readers of this novel will see how simple it is to set up a human trafficking business in nearly any large city. They will also come away with an understanding of how the traffickers operate their business from the spotting and selection of targets, to the capture, movement, holding, and marketing of the victims. The ‘good guys and gals’ in this novel understand and attack all aspects of the human-trafficking process. As you read this, note the challenge human trafficking poses to traditional law and order forces.

My latest novel, Run to Freedom, is the prequel to the Jack Brandon adventure series. In this story I rely heavily upon my knowledge of the old USSR

Barry Kelly’s fourth novel

and its KGB intelligence apparatus. The story starts in 1920 in Siberia, with a little known excursion of American troops, just as WWI was wrapping up. In this novel the readers will travel from Russia, to Poland, to Canada and several cities in America as Peter Brandon, Jack’s father, tries to escape the KGB in America. The forces the KGB deploys in America to capture or kill Peter are entirely within the capabilities of Russian intelligence in 1970’s America, as are the methods Peter uses to escape the dragnet.

All stories have some truth to them; within fiction lies reality. I hope you are able to read and understand, and take to heart, the messages in my fiction novels and will want to find out the message in my first non-fiction novel. Thanks for reading.

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Filed under Action thrillers, Barry Kelly, Eight Decades of Insights, Intelligence & Politics, Russia, Spy novels, Terrorism

Tagged as fiction, human trafficking, KGB, law and order, message, reality, terrorism

by starediting | January 15, 2014 · 7:00 am

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS — FOURTH NOVEL PUBLISHED

Barry Kelly’s fourth novel

My fourth novel, “Run to Freedom,” has been published and is now available for purchase as an ebook with the paperback edition to follow in a few days! This novel is a prequel of sorts, following the story of Jack Brandon’s father, Peter, and how he fights to escape from the control of the KGB.

It occurred to me while musing over my first three novels featuring Jack Brandon and his team that the story of Jack’s father, Peter, had been neglected. Here was a man who was a fast-track KGB officer who escaped from his masters and re-established the Brandon family in America. How did he manage to flee the KGB? How did he come to live in the U.S.? What was his life like in the Soviet Union? Who was Jack’s mother? What was she like? Where did the name Brandon come from?

Run to Freedom is the beginning of the Brandon family story.

It’s fast-paced, like my other three novels, and full of action with a bit of romance thrown in, in the form of an Irish gal that readers of “Justice Beyond Law” are sure to remember. You can purchase “Run to Freedom” from Amazon.com or Barnesandnoble.com. If you’d like to order a signed copy, click here. As always, I’d love to know what you think of all my books! Please feel free to leave me comments on this website, on my Facebook page, or on Amazon.

Has anyone ever written a fiction novel that was 100 percent fiction? I doubt it. Some truth always makes its way onto the pages the readers see. My characters are a combination of truth and imagination. None are actual people.

My novels contain a lot of detail. In the worlds of espionage, detail is king. Without it, any operations plan is useless. You may have to ignore pieces of the plan to deal with reality but scrambling from a plan is better than no plan at all. Detail also is necessary when devising and using aliases. Knowing when to change an alias is a learned skill. Bear with me as my hero changes identities multiple times over his journey.

For the intelligence operative, changing identities often requires a matching change in behavior. It is not easy to keep all this change straight. I’ve personally used many identities. Some lasted only a few hours, others months. The longer you use an alias, the more you slide into being someone else and the greater the impact on the real you.

I try to take few deviations from the truth when dealing with geography, distance, travel time, and various hardware items. Weapons used by the Brandon team and their capabilities are real. Distance shooting scenes are probable. Hand-to-hand combat is from my own training in Hapkido and the choreography of those scenes is correct. The firefights are plausible. Serving with CIA in I Corps Vietnam in 1968 and ‘69 gave me some experience with small-scale firefights.

The operational planning is real as is the casing of targets. The execution is based upon first-hand knowledge with a varying amount of fiction. Knowledge of the KGB is from study and two years in Moscow as the CIA Station Chief. The KGB is a worthy opponent and I added to my lore of tradecraft by that experience. Whatever skills I have in planning operations, I owe to excellent training by the CIA.

I want my readers to follow along with Peter Brandon as he tries to escape the KGB and feel they too are in the action. There are no superhuman actions. Many of you with the proper training could turn the clock back and face the same challenges.

My knowledge of the Irish Republic Army is slight. I hope I haven’t used too much imagination and too little fact in writing about it as it existed in the 1970s.

I hope my readers will enjoy the story of the early Brandons as much as they like reading about Jack and Kathy. Buckle your seat belt and enjoy the action!

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Filed under Action thrillers, Books, Intelligence & Politics, Spy novels

Tagged as action, adventure, book, ebook, fiction

by starediting | July 11, 2013 · 7:01 am

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS – 63

ALL STORIES HAVE A MESSAGE

Putting my three Jack Brandon novels together in one volume gives me another chance to call the reader’s attention to the thought process that created these stories with the embedded social and political messages many of you have noticed. First of all, I wanted to tell good stories.

While most of my experience has been in the operational side of espionage, I’ve gained significant experience in counter-intelligence, police operations, intelligence analysis and counter-terrorism. All of these security fields are subject to the effects of poor management from over centralization and the rise of political correctness from a population conditioned to fear police violence more than crimes of violence.

In the first book of the Trilogy, Justice Beyond Law, I used the backdrop of an illegal KGB network of sleeper agents. Throughout the Cold War this was a constant problem for our security services. As the Cold War eased and the ‘Wall’ came down, these KGB sleeper agents went through a confusing few years, while the Russians sorted out the organization of their agents living double lives in several American neighborhoods. Justice Beyond Law illustrates the problem traditional ‘law and order’ methodology has in dealing with uncovering and apprehending sleeper agents with terrorism missions.

Book two, Justice Without Mercy, poses two very hard areas for law enforcement officials using the traditional law and order case methodology, soft target terrorism and a serial killer. First, they must uncover a crime, identify the culprits, collect enough evidence for an indictment, follow all the rules of collection so the evidence can be used in a court, give the foreign criminals the same rights or nearly the same rights granted to U.S. citizens, including counsel. There are no shortcuts. This system protects the criminals more than the victims.

My third book, Shades of Justice, deals with human trafficking. Where fast action is necessary to save victims. Action that is not permitted by the pace of the law and order method of crime fighting. Our well-trained and dedicated law enforcement personnel would eventually solve these cases but not in time to save many of the victims.

The answer is not vigilantism in any form. I have crafted the Jack Brandon team to be far more moral and ethical than any vigilante group ever has been or will be. The answer is to remove some of the restrictions binding law enforcement in solving specific types of crimes. I’m confident many restrictions can be removed, suspended for a specified time or modified in favor of the victims. For specifics ask any friends who hold law and order positions, other than trial lawyers, to tell you about their problems in identifying criminals, apprehending them, building solid cases with evidence that will hold up in court and protecting the victims from repeat offenders.

The author of the Jack Brandon novels, is a Korean War veteran and served in the Vietnam War as a CIA agent who has 27 years of government service, including two years serving President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s as an advisor.

http://www.factsandfictions.com

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Filed under Eight Decades of Insights, Intelligence & Politics, Spy novels

by starediting | May 14, 2013 · 7:30 am

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS 50

As you may already know, I started writing “Eight Decades of Insights” 50 blogs ago mainly to promote my novels, of which there are now three. I’ve been lucky enough to have the books reviewed in a local daily newspaper where I live (The Sun News). I’m always happy to hear the opinions of what others think of my books — good or bad — because I think people’s opinions are important. But also, if someone is confused or unsure about something that happens in the novels or wonders why something happened a certain way, I like the opportunity to clear up the confusion or curiosity. I’m posting the most recent review of “Shades of Justice” here for you to read and to welcome you to leave your own comments here, on my Facebook page (www.facebook.com/factsandfictions) or on my Amazon author page.

Reading Corner | Myrtle Beach area author’s third book boasts good writing, but lots of violence

Books one and two of Pawleys Island author and retired CIA agent Barry Kelly’s good-guy-bad-guy series caught me in their snare.

I’m now a fan of his writing and of his hero Jack Brandon and sidekick wonder dog, Shadow. The animal is part Lassie, part Rin Tin Tin and part Wonderdog with a dash of his own breed’s (Bouvier) special talents tossed in.

I’ve come to enjoy the freedom from reality, a utopia of sorts, where the good guys have all the resources (money, material, training and skills) that they need to outfox the bad guys.

I love Kelly’s writing: It’s crisp, has clear style, good plotting and pacing. His place descriptions are wonderful. Of course it helps the settings include some of my favorite places in the world – Pittsburgh, Washington, D.C., metro area and the Grand Strand. The details are spot on and integral at many times to the unfolding of the plot. I’ve even been willing to accept a certain amount of vigilantism in the books – heroes step outside the law to bring the bad guys to justice – even when justice involves shootings.

The third book, “Shades of Justice,” takes on the very topical and important issue of human trafficking – people who brazenly steal young women from the streets and transport them to other countries to make them sex slaves.

By the end of this novel, the hero, Jack has also shown his respect for women by rescuing them but also by empowering female members of his team with training in fighting and technology. Even more telling is the way he treats his own wife – a woman who is his intellectual equal and partner in action – with love and respect.

However, this third book descends so far into violent vigilantism and outside of the law justice, it is simply too violent for me.

“Shades of Justice” has so much shoot ‘em up by the “good guys” that several times I wondered if I was in the middle of a violent video game. Kelly himself obviously felt the burden of this violence and his characters justify themselves more than once in philosophical conversations that offer the rationale for this violence.

“Leave no witnesses” seems to be the refrain in “Shades of Justice.” It was only Kelly’s good writing that kept me reading on in spite of the awful acts his good guys commit.

Once a reader accepts Kelly’s alternative world where Jack, wife Kathy and the others operate with unlimited monetary resources and wicked good physical, mental and technological skills, I think they would accept a few plot manipulations to allow for the rule of law and fewer bodies strewn about by the “good guys.” I’m hoping for more of that sort of thinking in his next work and look forward to reading it, because the man writes well.

If you have not read Kelly’s work before, start with his first two books: “Justice Beyond Law” and “Justice Without Mercy.” Read “Shades of Justice” with my warning – good writing but extreme violence ahead.

You can purchase “Shades of Justice” and the other two novels in the Jack Brandon thriller series at Amazon.com as print or ebooks or by contacting the author directly.