Getting Started with THE TRAITOR: A PASTOR STEPHEN GRANT NOVEL by Ray Keating

THE TRAITOR starts...

“It’s kind of breathtaking,” whispered Paige Caldwell, as she looked out at more than 500,000 citizens of Hong Kong gathered in and around Victoria Park...

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“Deep Rough” is the 11th White-Knuckle Thriller from Award-Winning Novelist Ray Keating

The Action Takes the Reader from Oppression in China to Espionage and Violence in the U.S. to Nail-Biting at Golf’s Major Tournaments 

Long Island, NY –Stephen Grant, the pastor at St. Mary’s Lutheran Church on Long Island, a former Navy SEAL and onetime CIA operative, returns in Deep Rough: A Pastor Stephen Grant Novel. 

One man faces challenges as a pastor in China. His son has become a breakout phenom in the world of professional golf. The Chinese government is displeased with both, and their lives are in danger. 

Stephen Grant has a history with the communist Chinese, while also claiming a pretty solid golf game. His unique experience and skills unexpectedly put him alongside old friends; at some of golf’s biggest tournaments as a caddy and bodyguard; and in the middle of an international struggle over Christian persecution, a mission of revenge, and a battle between good and evil.

The action spreads across the worlds of espionage and golf, featuring locales like the Monterey Peninsula, Taiwan, Long Island, China, Augusta, Georgia, and Washington, D.C.

Paperbacks from Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/dp/107308843X

Kindle edition at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07SSVS68T

Signed books at https://raykeatingonline.com/products/deep-rough-a-pastor-stephen-grant-novel

Author Ray Keating said, “This is another exciting ride for Stephen Grant and his readers, with the thrills coming whether Grant has a Bible, a gun, or a golf club in his hand.”

About Keating’s Pastor Stephen Grant thrillers and mysteries, one reviewer simply observed, “How I'd love to see Pastor Grant on Netflix!”

Paperbacks and Kindle editions of Deep Rough: A Pastor Stephen Grant Novelare available at Amazon.com, and signed books at RayKeatingOnline.com.

Keating’s previous Pastor Stephen Grant thrillers/mysteries – Shifting Sands (2018), Heroes and Villains (2018), Reagan Country (2018), Lionhearts (2017), Wine Into Water (2016), Murderer’s Row (2015), The River (2014), An Advent For Religious Liberty (2012), Root of All Evil? (2012), and Warrior Monk (Second Edition 2019) – have received widespread praise. 

Review copies, and author interviews and appearances are available upon request. 

Contact: Ray Keating

Phone: 631-909-1122

E-mail:raykeating@keatingreports.com

Facebook:www.facebook.com/PastorStephenGrantNovels

Twitter: @KeatingNovels

PastorStephenGrant.com

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Spy Stuff: Excuse Me, How Many Spies Are in Washington, D.C.?

It’s not surprising to read that Washington, D.C., is a high-target city for international spies. But the number tossed out in an articlepublished by WTOP.com might makes some eyes pop.

Consider the following from this article (the full piece is well worth reading, by the way):

     According to the International Spy Museum in D.C., an educational and historical center of U.S. intelligence documentation and artifacts, there are “more than 10,000 spies in Washington.”

     While there may be some quibbling about the actual numbers, the FBI agrees with the premise.

     “It’s unprecedented — the threat from our foreign adversaries, specifically China on the economic espionage and the espionage front,” said Brian Dugan, Assistant Special Agent in Charge for Counterintelligence with the FBI’s Washington Field Office.

- Ray Keating

The New Pastor Stephen Grant Novel – DEEP ROUGH – Available for Pre-Order Now!

One man faces challenges as a pastor in China. His son has become a breakout phenom in the world of professional golf. The Chinese government is displeased with both, and their lives are in danger.  

Stephen Grant – a onetime Navy SEAL, former CIA operative and current pastor – has a history with the communist Chinese, while also claiming a pretty solid golf game. His unique experience and skills unexpectedly put him alongside old friends; at some of golf’s biggest tournaments as a caddy and bodyguard; and in the middle of an international struggle over Christian persecution, a mission of revenge, and a battle between good and evil. (Publication date: July 16^th)

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Spy Stuff: How Does One of Your Neighbors Become a Spy?

Many stories can be found of otherwise seemingly solid folks becoming spies for America’s enemies. How does that happen?

The FBI offers some interesting insights in “The Case of the Friendly Neighborhood Spy.” The story of William Holden Bell being lured in by Marian Zacharski to hand over secrets to the Polish government, then firmly in the camp of the Soviet Union, is a classic case of a foreign agent preying on an individual in tough circumstances.

Toward the end of this interesting read, it’s noted: “Bell’s betrayal of his country mirrors the story of many others ensnared by foreign spies both past and present. Over time, vulnerable Americans are drawn in with money, companionship, attention, and other “carrots” in exchange for information, which gradually increases in importance, classification level, and quantity.”

- Ray Keating

Spy Stuff: JFK, the CIA and the Bay of Pigs

History.com has published an interesting piece on what went wrong with the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961.

One of the most interesting points:

When the plan, codenamed Operation Zapata, was presented to John F. Kennedy just weeks after he took the oath of office, the newly inaugurated president ultimately gave it his approval. Jim Rasenberger, author of The Brilliant Disaster: JFK, Castro, and America’s Doomed Invasion of Cuba’s Bay of Pigs, doesn’t believe that military planners pressured the new president into making a decision against his better judgment. “I think Kennedy knew very well what he was getting into, but he was in a tough place,” he says.

Read the entire article here.

- Ray Keating

Spy Stuff: Edinburgh Spy Week

Did you know that in Edninburgh, Scotland, something occurs each year called “Edinburgh Spy Week”? Well, I didn’t until I was just looking at some recent email I saved. 

According to an article in The Herald, “It was a talk by a modern day spy novelist, who just happened to be former head of MI5, that inspired Edinburgh Spy Week, the week-long event organised by three dedicated academics at the University of Edinburgh, that examines not only spy fiction but the history of spying, real life espionage and how the genre has seen crossover with detective and science fiction.” 

This year’s Spy Week ran from April 5 to April 12.

There’s more information at http://www.spyweek.ed.ac.uk. As explained on the website:

“Edinburgh Spy Week focuses on espionage literature, history and film and the ways in which secrecy and spying run through our history and culture. We bring together creative practitioners and academic researchers to talk about books, films and ideas in public and accessible ways.  Spy Week is organised by the English Literature and Film Studies departments at the University of Edinburgh and we work with other cultural bodies in Edinburgh to bring the very best of contemporary spy fact and fiction to the city.”

- Ray Keating 

Spy Stuff: Amateur, Adventurer Spies of WWII

RealClearLife.com serves up a fascinating article about three amateur spies during World War II. They were known as GBT group, “a secret operation that worked alongside, but not for, Allied intelligence agencies during the Japanese occupation of what was then called Indochina. In a part of the world where the Allies were struggling to get any useful information, the GBT group’s network of amateur informants became one of the most effective spy rings of the war.”

This is fascinating and exhilarating stuff.

Read the RealClearLife.com article here, or the CIA report that it was based on here.

Spy Stuff: The French Woman Who Ran One of the Most Important Resistance Efforts Against the Nazis

There’s a fascinating report from the New York Post about a new book covering Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, a French woman who “headed one of the most important resistance networks during World War II and oversaw the collection of crucial intelligence that helped turn the battle’s tide.”

It is noted: “In 1941, Fourcade ascended to command a vast intelligence network in France, overseeing some 3,000 agents and operating in nearly every sizeable town in the country.”

Consider the following from the piece:

    “If you’re raised not in your country, you’re raised with this love of an ideal,” Olson says. “She was raised with this love of France as an ideal, of liberty, equality, paternity. And the idea that Hitler would come in and destroy everything she held dear about her country outraged her.”

    She and Navarre were soon working to build a network of informers across Europe, and when Germany invaded France in 1940, the group moved completely underground.

    In 1942, Navarre was arrested, leaving Fourcade in charge of the network. In order to ensure the continued assistance of British intelligence, which had been providing money and supplies, Fourcade decided to travel to Spain to meet a MI6 representative.

    To meet her contact, Fourcade had to be smuggled across the border hidden in a small jute mail sack stuffed into the trunk of an accomplice’s car. She had to contort her 5-foot-6 body into a 2-by-4 bag and remain inside for more than nine hours, in excruciating pain the whole way.

    When they reached Spain and she was released, she fainted. Her accomplice revived her in the most French way possible: with a cigarette and a glass of cognac.

Check out this fascinating article, and the book - Madame Fourcade’s Secret War: The Daring Young Woman Who Led France’s Largest Spy Network Against Hitler (Random House) – is on my reading list.

- Ray Keating

Spy Stuff: Guess Who Was Tweeting During the Oscars?

Guess who was tweeting during the Oscars? It was the CIA, according to a report from CNN.

It was noted that the CIA tweets were “part of the CIA's ‘Reel vs. Real’ series, which seeks to demystify the CIA's mission by comparing what's seen on screens to reality.”

The CIA tweets were focused on the tech on display in Black Panther.

For example, on holograms, the CIA noted: “They’re real-life hot tech right now & as they improve, intel practitioners in the future could incorporate holographic displays for operations or holographic projections to illustrate situations to the President or other policymakers.”

Check out the CIA’s deeper dive on Wakandan tech, based on questions posed to, as the CIA explained, “one of the CIA’s most innovative scientists. We will call her ‘Rebecca’” Rebecca not only has a background in the traditional sciences, but also in emerging technologies and digital innovation.”

Spy Stuff: Spying on the Soviet Embassy in West Germany

An interesting article from RealLife.com offers a glimpse at CIA operations targeted at the Soviet Embassy in West Germany during the late 1960s.

I particularly found the following points interesting:

The declassified document describes the embassy as a potentially target-rich environment: 89 Soviets were assigned to the diplomatic facility in some form, and an estimated 60 percent of those were suspected to be connected to Soviet intelligence.

And there’s this:

    For Project CATOPHAT, the CIA was working with 12 assets “selected from American, German and third-country nationals in witting contact with target personnel to whom they have natural access.”

    A helpful Annex that comes with the declassified documents describes the assets: from a husband and wife couple who happen to live next to a suspected KGB officer, to an Austrian-born American medical school dropout who spied on his neighbors. 

    Another asset, a French citizen, was apparently “recruited” on a trip to Moscow by Soviet intelligence officers who were apparently unaware he was already working for the West. The Soviets wanted the Frenchman, in turn, to get himself recruited by the Americans.

Read the entire article here.

- Ray Keating

Spy Stuff: Slave Becomes a Spy for the Continental Army in Revolutionary War

History.com serves up the fascinating story of James Armistead, who was a slave in Virginia, became a spy for the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War, and played a crucial part in the American victory at the Battle of Yorktown.

It is noted in the article:

Posing as a runaway slave, Armistead quickly infiltrated British forces via Arnold’s camp. While at first he took on menial tasks, his vast knowledge of the terrain—a trait that wouldn't seem suspicious for a local runaway slave—was useful to both Arnold and Cornwallis for British intelligence during the war. So they assigned him the task of spying on the colonies.
 Armistead’s work as a double agent made traveling between the camps easier, as he didn't stand out as a peculiar presence by either side. It also made collecting information on British forces less dangerous—as long as he wasn’t caught.
 It was a dangerous tightrope act for Armistead: He supplied Lafayette with information on the British through handwritten notes delivered to other spies, meanwhile feeding Cornwallis and his company inaccuracies.

Read the entire article and what eventually happened to James Armistead.

- Ray Keating