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Santa Cruz Sentinel
Local Writer offers five news flashes
By: Peggy Townsend - Name Dropping
Most authors would be happy to have one book in print. But Santa Cruz writer and ex-newspaperman James Kruger may end up with five in print at the same time. The prolific author is launching his books—four mysteries and a historical romance—through an online publisher; and as things worked out, all five may come out in the same year. "I'm not sure how many years I have left," explained the low-key author, 71. "I didn't want to wait around." Jim, who worked as city editor at this newspaper before going to the San Jose Mercury News, is a writer's writer, known for spare prose and vivid images. His just-published book, Stranger in the Mirror, tells the story of Pete McCauley, a military hero who wakes up from a head injury to find he doesn't remember who he is. But the past that begins to come back to him isn't his own.
The book was born on Jim's interest in the CIA's MK-Ultra program, which used hypnosis and drugs in mind control research. The idea behind the project was not only to find a truth serum but to create an agent who could not have his or her mission tortured out of them. "I saw the stories of families who were suing the government over the MK Ultra program," while working at the Mercury, Jim said. His research into the subject became fodder for the book. He worked from 4 a.m. to noon at the Mercury, then wrote in the afternoons. His reason was one most newspaper people could understand; money. So he wrote Stranger in the Mirror, then turned it into a trilogy. After two bad experiences with literary agents and 10 years spent caring for his mother-in-law and wife, who both suffered from Alzheimer's disease, Jim decided to go the online publishing route. He has one book out and the two other books in the Pete McCauley series, The Secret Files of Moshe Shomeir and Tiger Lily, will follow soon. A murder mystery set in a town much like Santa Cruz called, Beach Street, will follow those, along with a historical romance called, The Bachelor Portraits, set in San Francisco during the period from the fires that followed the great earthquake of 1906 to the dock strike of 1934.
James Kruger, Author of Pennington's Patrimony, Welcome Are Lands, Stranger in the Mirror, The Secret Files of Moshe Shomier, Tiger Lily, The Bachelor Portraits, and Beach Street. James Kruger, Author of Pennington's Patrimony, Welcome Are Lands, Stranger in the Mirror, The Secret Files of Moshe Shomier, Tiger Lily, The Bachelor Portraits, and Beach Street.
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