Today we are interviewing David Tindell, author of the military thriller, The Silver Falcon. The Silver Falcon is the 4th book in his White Vixen series.
David Tindell lives in northwest Wisconsin, where he dabbles in radio, trains in the martial arts and studies the warrior ethos. His White Vixen and Quest series have earned stellar reviews. With his wife Sue he travels the world, seeking out new places to feature in his next thriller. He blogs at www.davidtindellauthor.com. Connect with him at X at www.x.com/davidtindell1 and Facebook at www.facebook.com/DavidTindellAuthor.
Interview
It was around 2011 or so, and my wife Sue was reading a paperback in
bed. She tossed it aside, about halfway through. “What’s the matter?” I
asked. “You can write better than this junk,” she said. She’d read some
of my short stories from my college days that had won a couple awards,
so I decided to try my hand at a novel. The result was The White Vixen.
Your latest book, The Silver Falcon, focuses on finding the Falcon. What exactly is the Falcon?
Well, that’s the big question. As it floats across Alaska from the west,
people on the ground can see it, but Air Force ground-based radar can’t
track it. Fighter planes are sent up and the pilots can see it
visually, but their radars won’t lock on, either. They photograph it
with their wing cameras, but when the film is developed, the object
isn’t there. When it drifts across the Canadian border and comes down in
the Yukon, Jo Ann Geary, the White Vixen, is sent up to Dawson City to
represent US interests as a team of Canadian Rangers prepares to go into
the wilderness of Tombstone Territorial Park to find the Falcon, which
has gotten its nickname thanks to a First Nations legend. But just as
they’re about to enter the park, Geary is informed by sat phone that an
unidentified aircraft has dropped paratroopers north of the object. Who
are they? Why do they want the Falcon, and how far will they go to keep
it from falling into Canadian and American hands?
Who is Jo Ann Geary and why is she called The White Vixen?
Lt. Col. Jo Ann Geary, USAF, is a member of Pallas Group, a secret unit
of special operations troops operating out of Special Operations Command
in Florida. She chose White Vixen as her code name because of a legend
told to her in childhood by her Korean mother. Jo is an expert martial
artist and linguist, and her adventures have taken her all over the
world.
Who are the other main characters?
Maj. Eric Anthony is the Canadian Secret Intelligence Service agent sent to the Yukon to command the mission. Sgt. Tom Miller is the ranking non-com of the Canadian Ranger patrol, a group of First Nations troops who don’t really trust the white guy from Ottawa or the Asian woman from the States. Maj. Brendan Walsh of the RCAF is a pilot who has gotten to know Jo from her training rotation at his base near Vancouver, and he’s then put in command of a two-jet flight to go north and bring down the Falcon if it tries to escape. Then there are the men—and one woman—in the group of paratroopers who have come in from the Arctic to get the Falcon before the Canadians do. They have a pretty good idea of what the Falcon is, and if they can’t retrieve it, they’re prepared to do whatever it takes to make sure nobody else does.
What’s the very first line of your book?
“Ilya Dubrovsky shot to his feet when the Pokolvnik entered the sparse conference room.”
What’s the main reason someone should really read your book?
If you like adventure novels, taking you to exotic places and giving you
characters you can really root for (and maybe against, too), with
action and attention to detail, this entire series is for you.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could start a
movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of
people, what would that be?
I would like people to really embrace the notion of honor. Personal honor, collective honor. I think it’s something we’ve lost track of in the past few decades. Some years back I read a great essay about this subject on the Art of Manliness website. Brett McKay wrote, “Traditional honor consists of having a reputation judged worthy of respect and admiration by a group of equal peers who share the same code of standards…Without honor, mediocrity, corruption and incompetence rule. Honor is based on reputation, and when people stop caring about their reputation and shame disappears, people devolve into doing the least they can without getting into legal trouble or getting fired.”
This is not something that can be put on a bumper sticker or explained in a sound bite or a 30-second campaign ad. It’s something that used to be taught by parents to their children, reinforced by grandparents, and upheld in private industry, even in government service. None of these things were ever perfect, but at least most of us seemed to have a common understanding that we can be better, as individuals, as a society, if we act honorably in our personal lives and toward each other. We need to get back to that and keep going forward with it. Imagine what a country we would have if personal and collective honor were held in high esteem again.
About the Book
October 1990. A mysterious object is
seen floating eastward over Alaska, resembling a silver falcon of
Tlingit legend. Air Force radar can’t see it. Fighter jets scramble to
intercept the object, but all the pilots can do is watch it cruise
across the border into Canada, where it comes down in a remote part of
the Yukon Territory.
USAF special operator Jo Ann Geary, the
White Vixen, is dispatched to Dawson City to assist Canadian Rangers in
the search for the object in the Cloudy Range of Tombstone Territorial
Park. They’ve barely started their hike when all radio comms with Ottawa
and Washington go dead, but not before Jo is told about an unidentified
aircraft dropping paratroopers north of the target’s last known
location. Who are they, and why do they want the Falcon?
As the weather deteriorates, Jo and the
Canadian intelligence agent in command of the mission worry that the
Rangers will be outnumbered and outgunned if they encounter the airborne
troops, who are almost certainly Russians. At the White House, the
president is told that the Falcon’s technology, whether man-made or
extra-terrestrial, could be so important that the invaders might
possibly call in a nuclear strike from an offshore submarine if they’re
unable to keep the Falcon away from the allied force.
Thrust into the midst of indigenous
Rangers who don’t really trust her, unable to get help from Washington
or Ottawa, and facing an enemy force that could be desperate enough to
risk war, the Vixen must call on all her skills to survive and prevent
the Falcon, whatever it is, from touching off a nuclear cataclysm.
Here’s what reviewers are saying about The Silver Falcon!
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The Silver Falcon is available at Amazon at https://bit.ly/TheSilverFalconEbook.
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