“Safe From the War” now available on Amazon
I’ve finally released my third novel, Safe From the War, as an ebook on Amazon. Print and audio versions to follow (hopefully soon). This book is the prequel to Line in the Valley, and explains what my protagonist Jerry Nunez experienced in Houston before he was sent to fight on the Texas border.
In one day it’s received a few five-star reviews. Not a bad start. 🙂
Short excerpt:
“Nunez approached the door, watching the window closely for shadows against the glass, eyes peering through blinds, anything. He saw and heard nothing. The door had no windows, and dirt was streaked across it at waist level.
Everything else was clean. Dirt on the door didn’t fit. Nunez pulled the flashlight from his belt and strobed the door with it.
The streaks were drying blood, not dirt. It looked like someone had reached for the door with bloody fingers, smearing it from their hands as they were pulled inside. Nunez strobed again, looking at the doorstep this time.
Blood. Lots of it. Not in a pool but scattered in large spots, each several inches across. Dozens of smaller drops dotted the doorstep. Red footprints covered the gaps between larger spots of blood. The random pattern of the drops suggested a violent struggle at the doorstep.
Looks like that little thug was telling the truth, Nunez thought. But the suspect was stabbing her, not punching her.
The blood was dark and thick. Nunez recognized it as venous blood, what most untrained observers thought was arterial blood. Nunez knew from previous experience on the street, and more than one bad incident in Afghanistan, that the girl was hurt bad. He reached for his radio shoulder mike and lifted his eyes from the doorstep.
Fingers were inside the window, separating the cheap Venetian blinds. Dark eyes behind them stared hatefully at Nunez. If the other hand held a gun, Nunez was fucked.”
If you should read it, please leave a brutally honest review. Thanks and I hope y’all enjoy it.
Chris
Chris Hernandez is a 20 year police officer, former Marine and currently serving National Guard soldier with over 25 years of military service. He is a combat veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan and also served 18 months as a United Nations police officer in Kosovo. He writes for BreachBangClear.com and has published two military fiction novels, Proof of Our Resolve and Line in the Valley, through Tactical16 Publishing. He can be reached at chris_hernandez_author@yahoo.com or on his Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/ProofofOurResolve).
Filed under: Cops, What Police Work is Really Like, Writing | 12 Comments
Tags: active shooter, military fiction, police, veteran writers
chrishernandezauthor 
Can’t wait to read it. Congratulations. AB
I’m excited that the book is finally published, but it would’ve taken only about half an hour to upload it on Create Space and thus offer it as a paperback. You have a substantial amount of followers these days, it would’ve been worth the effort… I guess I’ll read it on my laptop. Need to find out about Jerry Nunez’ newest adventure!
At last! I have just bought it from Amazon and if it is half as good as your others then my night is booked up and nothing else will get done until it is finished 🙂
Read it on Sunday. Very enojyable.
I found your first book a bit slow pacing-wise and the end not completely satisfying (that’s the problem with realism – see Curtis Rich’s “Common Valor” for a different approach).
The second fixed that and read really well, though to me the scenario felt a bit isolated.
The third one is the best: Not just an excellent book on its own (with the usual benefits of more practice: More concise prose, better characterisation and all that), but improves the previous one giving it more context.
Without re-reading the second book, I have to guess: Did you make your combat scenes shorter? If so, good going, it does help with keeping the overall perspective on what is happening where.
Technical perspective: I think I found only one typo (to hill instead of to kill, iirc) and one missing verb, so production value looks good, too.
Dammit! I swear, no matter how many times I read my works, I always miss small errors.
Thanks brother. Care to drop a review maybe? 🙂
Of course. Submitted it and it’s already live (darn, that tells me I should be working, not posting here^^).
Actually having to write that review made me realize what I found to be the weak part: The end does not come as a surprise and getting there is also not much of one.
Now I am in a bad position, of course, so this may be just me: I read the sequel before, I have a good idea what you think about the current state of the world and I regularly read “those kinds of books”. Also, I learned that real investigations are not dependent on bright flashes of insight, but putting in the hours, or shaking and rattling things until something falls off (like every job, I guess). So this is totally realistic. But not surprising.
Around christmas, I read some books by Larkin and Bond (the other masters of the 90s geo-political thriller, “other” as in “they are not Tom Clancy”, though Bond worked with Clancy on ‘Red Storm Rising’). Anyway, ‘Vortex’ stuck to my mind: It is a fictional South vs. North Korea. It says so on the cover. No surprise at all. But how the events come to pass is still quite surprising and engaging (and involves a politician’s aide, a bill with the politicians name on and a bad combination of incentives for all voting blocks).
You had several small scenes (like that one missing detail for the important building, that patrol car crew not listening on the right channel or that one black SUV not being a part of any observation) that had a huge impact for the characters involved, but not for the story. Using those to advance the story (the patrol car giving away the observation, for example, though this is an old trope – or some event blocking swat from taking the higher building instead of combat inertia(or whatever you guys call it in the US)) would have improved it for me to 5-star level.
And now I need to leave to go punch holes in innocent paper.
Can you send me the link to your review? For some reason, yours and someone else’s aren’t coming up on the main page.
Thanks for the feedback, it will definitely help for book 4. 🙂
Nevermind, now it’s showing. So is the other one. Weird.
Good read.
I bought the book with the intention of reading it in one sitting, that never happened as life got in the way and many things conspired to prevent this planned enjoyment of your latest book.
Now at last having been able to sit alone and read and having finished it, all I have to say is “thanks Chris” oh and when is the next one coming??
I am off to Amazon now to leave a very positive review ……
Bam! Thanks Paul!