My fourth mystery follows similar footsteps of my last
series—a murder mystery with a paranormal twist that includes a historical
subplot and a main character that is, well, living-challenged. Dead. Okay, yes,
one of my main characters is dead.
Let me explain. Here’s the story’s summary:
Murder, like history, often repeats
itself. And when it does, it's the worst kind of murder.
Detective Richard Jax was never
good at history. Now, after years as a cop, he was about to get the lesson of
his life.
As Jax lay dying after being
ambushed at an old inn on a stakeout, he's saved by Captain Patrick
"Trick" McCall—the ghost of a World War II OSS agent. Trick has been
waiting since 1944 for a chance to solve his own murder and prove he wasn’t a
traitor. Soon, Jax is a suspect in a string of murders. The murders are linked
to smuggling refugees out of the Middle East—a plot similar to the World War II
“Operation Paperclip,” an OSS operation that brought scientists out of war-torn
Europe. With the aid of a beautiful and brilliant historian, Dr. Alex Vouros,
Jax and Trick unravel a seventy year-old plot that began with Trick's murder in
1944. Could the World War II mastermind, code named Harriet, be alive and up to old games? Is history repeating itself?
Together, they hunt for the link
between their pasts, confronted by some of Washington's elite and one
provocative, alluring French Underground agent, Abrielle Chanoux. Somewhere in
Trick's memories is a traitor. That traitor killed him. That traitor is killing
again.
Who framed Jax and who wants
Trick's secret to remain secret? The answer may be, who doesn't?
There were several elements behind the plot of New Sins for Old Scores that combines
fact-based history—perhaps with a few liberties here and there—with my
imagination. First, Operation Paperclip was a real operation during World War
II. The US, using the OSS—the forerunner of the Central Intelligence
Agency—sneaked scientists and industrialists out of war-torn Germany and into
the US to further the US’s advancements in the face of the growing Cold War
with Russian. The Russians were doing it too. In truth, Operation Paperclip brought
German rocket scientist Wernher Von Braun to the US. Von Braun had been the
German pioneer behind Hitler’s famed rocket program—including the V2 rockets
that threatened to devastate England and win the war for Germany. He had also
been a Nazi. Through Operation Paperclip, Von Braun ultimately became the US’s
leading scientist in our space program. To accomplish many of these relocations,
the US “erased” or otherwise ignored the checkered past of these scientists and
industrialists. Most were Nazi Party members that had participated or at least overlooked
slave labor and other war crimes while they continued to support Germany’s war
efforts. But their knowledge and skills were paramount to supporting the US in
the growing Cold War against the Soviets—who had, of course, grabbed their own
scientists and industrialist with the goal of burying the US entirely. German
war spoils, including its people, were scooped up with the knowledge that
another war would come between the allies that defeated Germany.
Now, I’m a history buff and the OSS and Operation Paperclip
fascinate me. I was also an anti-terrorism agent with the US military during
the first Persian Gulf War and understood both the complexities and shortfalls
of war and its aftermath. So I began to wonder—in the Persian Gulf Wars, the US
used countless contractors to support the war efforts. Those included companies
with intricate ties to our intelligence community and Special Forces. The
question I raised was—What if one of these contractors ran its own Operation
Paperclip in the Middle East? What if they did it without the government’s
knowledge and they did it for profit? Surely there were thousands—more—Iraqis,
Afghanis, and others who would pay serious money to get out of the region and
into the US—legally or illegally. What if this corrupt contractor took
advantage and ran a human smuggling scheme similar to Operation Paperclip? And
what if that modern day human trafficking caper wasn’t the first? What if back
in WWII, some enterprising operatives ran their own trafficking ring to smuggle
people out of Europe who the OSS might not have been interested in.
Viola, the basis for
New Sins for Old Scores. Add a local
Virginia detective who stumbled onto the caper, a couple murders, a heroic Arab
girl, and a dead OSS operative and you’ve got a story.
This plot proves that history repeated itself quite nicely.
In my story, Trick McCall discovered an illegal operation in 1944 to smuggle
wealthy German’s out of Europe to the States for profit. He was killed for it.
In 2011, Jax stumbles on another human trafficking ring and he was nearly
killed for it. Together, they must find those responsible and prove that
Captain Trick McCall was not a double agent for the Nazi’s and that Jax is not
a cold-blooded killer.
So for New Sins for
Old Scores, the story is based on facts—perhaps tainted with real sins
too—with the US’s bringing Nazi scientists to the US and turning a blind eye to
their misdeeds and complicity in war crimes. Along the way, good men and women
died for those sins. New Sins for Old
Scores shows that while time may go by and war becomes more and more
sophisticated, evil keeps pace, and ultimately, it’s the basic failures of men
who commit the worst sins. For Richard Jax and Capt. Trick McCall, those old
scores surface again but with new sins. And if not for the repeating history,
they would never learn the truth.
For more on New Sins
for Old Scores or my other paranormal mysteries, check out my world at
www.tjoconnor.com
Bio
Tj O’CONNOR IS THE
GOLD MEDAL WINNER OF THE 2015 INDEPENDENT PUBLISHERS BOOK AWARDS (IPPY) FOR
MYSTERIES. He is the author of New Sins
for Old Scores, Dying to Know, Dying
for the Past, and Dying to Tell. His
new thriller, The Consultant: Double
Effect will be out in the spring of 2018 from Oceanview Publishing. Tj is
an international security consultant specializing in anti-terrorism,
investigations, and threat analysis—life experiences that drive his novels.
With his former life as a government agent and years as a consultant, he has
lived and worked around the world in places like Greece, Turkey, Italy,
Germany, the United Kingdom, and throughout the Americas—among others. He was
raised in New York's Hudson Valley and lives with his wife and Lab companions
in Virginia where they raised five children.
Learn about Tj’s
world at:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/tjoconnor.author
Blog: http://tjoconnorbooks.blogspot.com/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7148441.T_J_O_Connor
