Tim’s debut novel, The Sea Glass Murders, was a finalist for the 2021 Connecticut Book Awards. Other books in the Sea Glass series include Murder This Close, a neighborly conspiracy that finds two famous authors dead; Moscow Five,  a spy ring on the verge of exposure by the KGB; and Last Reich, a multi-continent race to stop the emergence of a new generation of Nazi evil. Follow-on novels in the Jonas Pratt series will place the mighty Bridger in every theater of World War II as America reckons with an emergent Soviet Union bent on world domination.

Tim is the chief content officer of Belvoir Media Group, publishers of monthly periodicals from major healthcare centers, including Harvard Medical School, The Cleveland Clinic, and Massachusetts General Hospital. In prior roles, he served in editorial positions at leading marine magazines, and was the science, technology, aerospace editor at Popular Mechanics. Tim’s editorial assignments have taken him aboard America’s nuclear Navy, to climate change studies at the South Pole, and to particle physics cyclotrons in Siberia. He is an instrument-rated private pilot and holds a 50-ton captain’s license from the U.S. Coast Guard.  Tim and his wife, Sarah Smedley, live in New York City.

A word from the author

For me, writing the first novel of a series requires a least a kernel or two of real-life history, or the arrival of some larger-than-life persona, to fictionalize and build upon. My earlier books in the Dasha Petrov series drew from a composite of personalities to arrive at the swashbuckling elderly grand dame who became Dasha Petrov. And, of course, she had to be a spy…with just a sprinkling of retired assassin.

The basic outlines of Jonas Pratt came from my grandfather, Robert E. Cole, who was damage control officer then exec aboard the U.S.S. West Point, America’s fastest World War II troopship. West Point was converted into her wartime role from the ocean liner America, a worthy sister to ships in the United States Lines. Luckily for me, my grandfather wrote West Point’s damage-control manual (for which he earned a citation from Admiral Nimitz). This trim, readable volume came into my possession, and the U.S.S. James F. Bridger was born. Bridger, a 19th -century scout and mountain man, was a fixture in the American west. He was endowed with a crisp, trim name that evoked a connection—a bridge—between far-flung places. I kind of liked that, and I also thought Bridger sounded stout, tough and sufficiently colloquial for those moments when the word would be thrown around by my protagonists. I also wanted a floating crime scene that wouldn’t offend West Point’s many admirers. I needed to invent a wholly new vessel that would allow me to shape the ship to fit any unwinding plot. For instance, in Dawn of the Blade, I needed a photo darkroom to develop crime scene photos, so I threw one in next to the brig. Problem solved.

My grandfather’s damage control manual came with diagrams of key systems—watertight doors, for instance, and drainage and ventilation lines—so it was easy to build reference to these fixtures into the narrative. One ran the risk of loading up on too much detail, however, as a couple of my well-meaning beta readers pointed out. Still, when I learned my grandfather’s battle station during general quarters was Battery Two, I had to know how to fire that five-inch gun. I hope readers forgive this and other technical digressions.

Likewise, I came across a 1942 Marine Corps weapons manual that proved to be a trove of essential detail, from web carry systems to caliber and capacity of the World War II Marine’s rifles and handguns. After reading Chesty Puller’s biography, I learned to like the antiquated M1903 bolt-action Springfield rifle over the finicky M1 semi-automatic, which overcame its teething problems to become the American fighting man’s standard-issue personal weapon into the 1950s.

Watch for coming blogs on these and other topics.