with Alexandra Hamlet
Set in the 1970s, Alexandra Hamlet's debut suspense novel, The Right Guard (Foxboro Press, January 2012 hardcover and ebook formats) is a fast-paced thriller that mirrors the political and economic climate of the United States today. And we are delighted to have the opportunity to give three of our readers a chance to win a copy of this book, courtesy of Media Connect; details below.
Here is the premise of The Right Guard: There is an organization, well funded and using weapons from the US armories for takeover of the US government from within. The year is 1978, and someone has stolen over one million military weapons and equipment from U.S. military inventories across the country. Who is stealing these weapons and why? A wounded and recovering CIA operative, Eric Brent, is used to flush out a secretive "phantom group" hostile to a wildly spending, intrusive U.S. Administration that threatens to destroy the American economy and shrink individual freedoms. The story takes place in the few days between the discovery by the CIA of a massive plot centered on a group that called itself "the Right Guard" and the execution of that takeover.
Photo provided courtesy of
Alexandra Hamlet
The book is based on real events and the author's personal experience, but still … Could the events in this book actually unfold in real life?
"I was a defense contractor, [defense anthropologist] for 14 years," says Hamlet. "As anyone in the operative world will tell you, operational intelligence work is 98% boredom and 2% sheer terror. As a novelist, I had to make all of the pages compelling, so there is a significant portion that is fiction. I knew many of the characters I wrote about. Their characterizations are composites so as not to identify any one individual."
Since it's publication earlier this year, The Right Guard has been honored with awards in three categories of the International Book Awards: Best New E-Book (Fiction), Best New Fiction, and Best E-Book (Mystery/Thriller/Adventure).
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Alexandra Hamlet is a cultural and defense anthropologist, an international lecturer and a former TV and print journalist. She consults on cultural affairs and international business. She was an auxiliary nurse in London; Visiting Fellow at Harvard University; an executive search specialist for world-wide C-suite positions; and is a consultant on irregular warfare. For more information about the author, visit her website at AlexandraHamlet.com.
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The Right Guard
Alexandra Hamlet
Publisher: Foxboro Press
Over one million military weapons and equipment are missing from the U.S. military inventories across the country. Who is stealing the weapons and why? CIA operative Eric Brent, and his revolutionary light weapon invention, is used by CIA to flush out a secretive, phantom group hostile to a wildly spending, intrusive U.S. Administration that threatens to destroy the American economy and shrink individual freedoms.
Hamlet takes you through the twists and turns of the secretive world of intelligence as the undercover assignment goes astray. Eric exposes a far-reaching and well-planned movement and an event that could alter the United States forever.
Strained loyalties arise as the phantom group appeals to Eric and his superiors. At the height of his infiltration, a former lover, Jill, reenters his life and places them both in danger. Loyal forces within the intelligence community struggle to learn who is involved and organize counter-moves yet stay undetected. Each question ends in surprise as personal and professional conflicts for Eric arise. He is forced to reach back into his high-ranking father's Nazi Germany past … to solicit help.
The year is 1978, yet The Right Guard resembles the present state of the political and economic climate of the U.S. and a possible, eerie scenario and outcome.
The Right Guard is an exercise in gripping, fast-paced realism that keeps the reader mesmerized through the eyes of those who live in the intelligence world.
For a chance to win a copy of The Right Guard, courtesy of the author, visit Mystery Book Contests, click on the "Alexandra Hamlet: The Right Guard" contest link, enter your name, e-mail address, and this code — 5889 — for a chance to win! (One entry per person, US residents only; contest ends August 20th, 2012.)
