EDWARD "TERRY" IRVING
THE BOOKS
Written by a man who knows! Terry Irving's Books are inspired by his life as a newsman on the road. If the phrase "been there done that" ever applies to anyone, it applies to Terry. For any reader who wants to know how it feels to work in the wacky world of journalism, particularly in other parts of the world, his work is a must-read.
COURIER
The War didn't kill him, but Washington just might.
Rick Putnam is running for his life. A Vietnam Veteran riding a motorcycle for a national news network, he's picked up something too hot to handle. So hot that a reporter and a camera crew has already been killed and a rogue CIA kill squad is on his tail. Stick with this charismatic character as he fights his way all the way to 1600 Pennsylvania in his battle for the truth.
"Peabody Award-winner Irving, a veteran TV news writer and producer, uses his own formative experiences in the business as the starting point for this conspiracy thriller set in Washington, D.C., in 1972. The fast-paced action will appeal to Baldacci and Meltzer fans" --Publishers Weekly
"An action-packed tale of murder and political intrigue set in the politically turbulent 1970s.... Irving portrays [courier Rick Putnam] as a classic pulp-fiction hero: a chiseled, chain-smoking ex-soldier who's always ready with snappy quips. ... Irving's story is relentlessly paced, punctuated by bursts of action and violence, and driven by artfully unfolding suspense.... An exciting and gritty...thriller." --Kirkus Reviews "The suspense never lets up from the first page to the last. Rick Putnam is a recent Vietnam vet in the early 1970s who works as a courier for a Washington, DC television station while trying to put his life back together after being injured in the war...."Courier" is a tense story set in the days before social media, when news professionals still need to develop film in a dark room and splice footage together. Author Terry Irving clearly knows the inside of the news business in a different time..." ---Reviewed by Kathleen Heady for Suspense Magazine
WARRIOR
When the Devil is on your tail, Drive LIke Hell!
"Warrior" begins in 1973 with a .50 caliber machine gun round slamming overhead as Rick Putnam and Eve Buffalo Calf are walking in supplies to the American Indian Movement militants besieged in Wounded Knee.
In a matter of hours, they find themselves on the run from distrustful AIM members, US Marshalls and the FBI, and a mysterious group that appears to be attacking both sides. Rick accepts a sacred mission from a militant who saved his life back in Vietnam and that leads him into battle against a cult determined to destroy the reservation where Eve grew up.
As in "Courier," the first book in the "Freelancer" series, "Warrior" is set in the gritty, dangerous 1970's when ordinary Americans thought they were being paranoid when they feared faceless, nameless forces--forces that were very real and extremely dangerous. Rick, Eve, and his computer hacker housemates are forced to battle with an unholy mixture of corporate, government, and cult fanatics as they struggle to rescue their families and save themselves.
If you lived through the 70's, it will bring back sharp and often painful memories, if you didn't, you'll get an entirely new perspective on the world of "groovy" clothes and "Have a Nice Day" smile buttons. "Warrior" is another non-stop, high-speed thrill ride from Terry Irving so don't start reading it if you've got that important meeting in the morning because you'll be up all night--desperate to see what's next.
The Day Of The Dragonking
Terrorists Attack DC with Magic And All Hell Breaks Loose
Fans of Robert Anton Wilson's fast and loose approach to political conspiracy and Douglas Adams's bumbling unwilling heroes will eat up Irving's first batch of giddy, clumsy world-saving adventures, which launches the Last American Wizard series. A "mystical terrorist group" sacrifices an airplane full of innocents to a dragon and uses the deaths to power an event that wreaks magical havoc on Washington, D.C. All the wizards in the U.S. government's employ abruptly lose access to magic, and the world's computers and gadgets become sentient.
Second-string journalist Steven Rowan embodies the tarot's Fool and is forced to figure out the card's magic on the fly. Bombshell soldier Ace Morningstar, who used her magic to disguise herself as a man so she could become a SEAL, drafts Steve and his cell phone, which contains the ghost of a Chinese factory worker who now communicates through screen animations and bad autotranslations, to help fix the mess.
Gathering allies, including NSA supercomputer Barnaby and Ace's BMW, Hans, the team fights off newly transformed demons, dog monsters, and ogres while trying to find out who is controlling the Illuminati before the villains embark on the next step of their world-domination strategy. Irving's smart parody of Beltway life and his high-energy storytelling carry through to the end and promise to maintain momentum well into the next installment.
On The Frontlines of the Television War
A Legendary War Cameraman in Vietnam
by Yasutsune "Tony" Hirashiki Edited by Terry Irving
“Tony Hirashiki was simply one of the best television cameramen to cover the Vietnam War. His soaring video, often acquired only at great personal risk, gave wings to even the most mundane narration. For those of us who worked with him he was also a source of gentleness and joy in a place where both were in terribly short supply.” - Ted Koppel, Former Nightline anchor ABC
On The Frontlines of the Television War is the story of Yasutsune "Tony" Hirashiki's ten years in Vietnam—beginning when he arrived in 1966 as a young freelancer with a 16mm camera but without a job or the slightest grasp of English and ending in the hectic fall of Saigon in 1975 when he was literally thrown on one of the last flights out.
His memoir has all the exciting tales of peril, hardship, and close calls as the best of battle memoirs but it is primarily a story of very real and yet remarkable people: the soldiers who fought, bled, and died, and the reporters and photographers who went right to the frontlines to record their stories and memorialize their sacrifice. The great books about Vietnam journalism have been about print reporters, still photographers, and television correspondents but if this was truly the first “television war,” then it is time to hear the story of the cameramen who shot the pictures and the reporters who wrote the stories that the average American witnessed daily in their living rooms.
"Tony Hirashiki is an essential piece of the foundation on which ABC was built. From the day he approached the Bureau Chief in Saigon with a note pinned to his shirt saying he could shoot pictures to the anxious afternoon of 9/11 when we lost him in the collapse of the Twin Towers (and he emerged covered in dust clutching his precious beta tapes,) Tony brought the truth about the important events of our day to millions of Americans." -David Westin, Former President of ABC News
