James Moushon and I met at the Tucson Festival of Books in 2013. James recently released his third Jonathon Stone Mystery, “Game of Fire.” In “Game of Fire,” CIA agent Jonathon Stone is brought up against his old nemesis, Tay Minh, when the investigation into an arson fire indicates it might have been an act of terrorism.
When asked why he wrote “Game of Fire,” James said, “There still remains a huge divide between the North and South Vietnamese immigrates. Each year someone in the Garden Grove area (Little Saigon) of California will fly the North’s flag or display a picture of Ho Chi Minh and violence will occur.”
“The story is based on the Anti-Ho Chi Minh protest during the New Year celebrations of 1999,” said James. “A Vietnamese-American video store owner caused controversy when he displayed in his store a portrait of Vietnamese communist revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh. Several demonstrations came close to a full scale riot in front of the store.”
Born in Illinois and a graduate of Bradley University in Peoria, James helped lead the startup of the electronic forms industry in its early days. That background of providing an industry with published literature, software products, and training seminars, eventually led James to seek a more creative outlet. He said, “I am currently wearing three hats. I am a mystery writer, a book publishing blogger and a computer consultant.”
Even though the Jonathon Stone mysteries have a CIA operative as the protagonist, they are written in the style of cozy mysteries, i.e., no graphic sex, violence, or language. James pulls on his computer background to make them as accurate as possible. He said, “I do a lot of research. Coming from a computer background, I handle all my writing chores with a database system and some custom programming I threw together. Story lines, character profiles and even common editing problem-areas are neatly controlled. I even use my own software to do the ebook conversion to check out how the ebook format will appear on the various ebook devices.”
James is also concerned that the locations he describes in his books are accurate. “The places I use in my books are places I have firsthand knowledge, backed by a detailed study. I lived in the area the story takes place and the scenes are really snapshots of the good times I had there. I tried to stay away from LA and concentrate on some of the little-known sections like Belmont Shore, Huntington Harbour, Signal Hill and, of course, Little Saigon.”
Book summary
An explosion and fire rocks a Southern California mall and it is quickly determined to be arson. The timing of the incident is special because it interrupts the Tet New Year’s Festival and Parade in Little Saigon, an area just east of Long Beach.
Enter veteran CIA Agent Jonathon Stone. Already in pursuit of the gunrunning Minh family, he connects with a special FBI task force to assist in the investigation of the explosion and Minh quickly becomes their number one suspect.
Stone teams up with FBI Agent Jodi Shannon to pursue the people behind the arson fire. Jodi is a serious, no nonsense agent who leads the FBI Arson Task Force. While she fights to solve the mystery, she also fights Stone’s advances. As always, he tries to mix business with pleasure.
More information
James Moushon runs three blogs as well as his own website. Those sites are:
Website – http://www.jamesmoushon.com/
Blogs:
eBook Authors Corner – http://bit.ly/TauYkJ
HBS Author’s Spotlight – http://bit.ly/QVEMix
HBS Mystery Reader’s Circle – http://bit.ly/19Nfrx8
Thanks for asking me Terry. I am waiting for Con Game to be released so I can jump on board.