A collection short stories about national service by author Martin Roy Hill. In the title story, "Duty," a Cold War soldier faces the prospect of starting WWIII. In "Something Far Away," a former Coastguardsman must face his ghosts from the past. A Navy investigator faces a different kind of ghost aboard a nuclear aircraft carrier in "Destroyer Turns." "Brandenberg's Diaries" tells the story of a retired spy's last mission during Glasnost. A group of soldiers faces the curse of war over several generations in "The Stragglers." And in "The Use of Innocence," a Vietnam vet contemplates a younger generation eager for another war.

The first nonfiction book by award-winning novelist Martin Roy Hill, WAR STORIES describes acts of great heroism and acts of pure blundering, intrepid leadership and self-serving vainglory, brilliant wartime technological developments and not so brilliant ideas. Some will awe the reader with their inspirational stories. Others will astound the reader by the military stupidity they reveal.

Chimera Island. For more than a century, the tiny atoll has been the subject of legend and rumors. Mysterious sightings. Strange deaths. Unexplained disappearances. A transport plane sent to Chimera to evacuate frightened scientists from a climate research station on the island disappears, along with a Chinese spy ship prowling nearby waters. The U.S. Coast Guard sends its most secret team to investigate, Deployable Specialized Force-P—the P is said to stand for phenomenon.DSF-Papa, led by Lieutenant Commander Douglas Munro Gates, discovers there is more to the legend of Chimera Island than rumors and folklore. The climate research station is wrecked. Strange creatures skulk thro...

They call it simply "the object."It sits at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean, waiting.Waiting . . . for what?An American research ship disappears in the Arctic's Chukchi Sea only to reappear a few days later. When a special U.S. Coast Guard unit boards the vessel, they find it deserted, its power grid wrecked, two bombs waiting to explode, and an even darker secret hidden below her decks.A few miles across the international maritime boundary, a massive Russian oil platform harbors its own secret. Below the behemoth lies a mysterious energy source so powerful it threatens to topple the balance of world power in favor of Moscow.The Russians will to kill to protect it. The Americans will kill to ...

“If this is Paradise, how bad could Hell be?”

A sandstorm uncovers a long buried secret in the Iraqi desert, an ancient Sumerian temple dating back at least 6,000 years to the beginning of civilization. An American army patrol sent to investigate the ruins is trapped inside the temple’s eroded walls, first by an insurgent ambush then by another, even more powerful sandstorm. When an enemy mortar shell blasts an opening into a hidden burial chamber, Captain Adam Cadman and his soldiers take refuge deep in the ruins. What they find hidden inside threatens to destroy every belief about the beginnings of mankind—as well as modern civilization as we know it.
 

"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."  Samuel Johnson Iraq, 1991: Operation Desert Storm. In a terrible friendly fire incident, a U.S. helicopter massacres a small convoy of American MPs. Among the dead: a mysterious American civilian engineer discovered by the soldiers behind enemy lines.San Diego, CA, 1993: A freelance journalist is hired to write a story about a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the dead engineer's widow against the government and the defense contractor he worked for. The problem: the government insists the lawsuit does not exist, and the contractor claims the engineer did not work for them. Worse, someone is willing to kill to keep it that way.Peter Bra...

He warned her. People die in lonely and empty places. But she didn't listen.Peter Brandt is a war-scarred news service reporter who has seen more than he can bear to remember. Returning to the States, he discovers his former wife, TV reporter Robin Anderson, brutally murdered and the local cops doing nothing to find her killer. Driven by guilt and regret over his failed marriage, Peter sets out with an old friend, retired cop Matt Banyon, to find Robin's killer. Following clues she left behind, Peter and Matt unearth a shadowy world of sex, drugs, political corruption, and a wealthy Cuban freedom fighter with a suspicious past. Peter and Matt soon become the hunted, and Peter must finally fa...

2017 Best Mystery/Suspense Novel (Best Independent Book Awards)2018 Clue Award for Best Thriller (Chaticleer International Book Awards)Meet William Butcher, aka The Butcher, former Navy SEAL, now a disgraced ex-NCIS agent.Those who stole $9 billion in cash from Iraq want him dead.The cops want him for murder.Butcher's only hope is his former NCIS colleague and closest friend, Linus Schag.Together Schag and Butcher tear away the veil of conspiracy, uncovering a criminal enterprise reaching into the highest levels of government.Ripped from today's headlines, this sequel to Martin Roy Hill's highly praised The Killing Depths takes the reader from the California mountains to the coastal waters o...

A submarine. A secret mission. And a serial killer.

A killer lurks beneath the waves of the western Pacific Ocean. 

The USS Encinitas, the first attack submarine crewed by both men and women, stalks the Crescent Moon, a renegade Iranian sub armed with nuclear-tipped missiles. But another predator hides aboard the American sub, a murderer who has already left a trail of dead women behind on shore.

While the crew of the Encinitas plays a deadly game of hide-and-seek with the Crescent Moon, NCIS investigator Linus Schag must discover the killer’s identity before his – or her – blood lust leads to the submarine’s total destruction.

NCIS Special Agent Linus Schag is no stranger to violence and bloodshed, but when he’s sent to Iraq to take custody of two Navy SEALs suspected of murder, he finds himself thrust into a manmade inferno as coalition forces fight to free northern Iraq from the Islamic extremist group called ISIS.The explosion of an IED allows the SEALs, suspected of killing a fellow commando, to escape and flee up the Tigris River in a stolen Navy patrol boat. Schag pursues the SEALs in another boat assisted by an Army criminal investigator, a vengeful Iraqi interpreter, and a hostile Navy boat crew. Facing danger at each bend in the river, Schag and his companions endure ambushes, firefights, and friendly f...

Winner of three awards for best mystery thriller!On May 8, 1945, WWII in Europe ended with Germany’s surrender. But did the Nazi Party itself surrender? Some say no.1943: A German ship moors in a clandestine anchorage in western Mexico with a cargo of gold intended to bribe the Mexican government into declaring war on the United States. When the attempt fails, the German vessel flees leaving its gold buried somewhere along the coast of the Sea of Cortés.1997: The horrific murder of an old flame’s husband sets former war correspondent Peter Brandt on the hunt for the hidden Nazi treasure. The search takes him down a bloody trail leading from the drug cartels of Mexico to a neo-Nazi train...

Named Best Military Thriller of 2023 by BestThrillers.Finalist, War & Military, 2023 Foreword Reviews Book AwardsFinalist, 2023 Hemingway Award for War FictionFinalist, 2023 Readers Favorite Award for Military FictionThe Spear of Destiny. The Roman Legionnaire's lance that pierced Christ's body as he hung on the cross.Legend claims whomever possesses it will become a great conqueror. But if they lose it, they will lose everything—including their lives.Shortly before WWII, Hitler stole the spear from a museum in Vienna. In the last weeks of the European war, he lost it. General George Patton orders an American OSS team to find the spear and recover it. Unknown to the Americans, both the...

A brother lost to war. A shocking claim. A deadly truth.Former war correspondent Peter Brandt’s childhood innocence died the day his older brother, Keith, died in Vietnam. Now, a quarter of a century later, Keith’s former fiancée, Rhonda White, comes back into Peter’s life with an incredible claim—Keith may still be alive.Twenty-four hours later, police find Rhonda’s body floating in San Diego Bay. Is it murder or suicide?Rhonda’s death and her claim about Peter’s brother set him on an investigation ranging from the beaches and foothills of Southern California to the mountains of Costa Rica. The deeper he digs, the more mysteries he finds: Marines who fought alongside Keith do...