by Joseph Badal
So begins a decades-long journey that takes the Danforth family from Michael’s kidnapping and Bob and Liz’s efforts to rescue him, to Bob’s forced separation from the Army because of his unauthorized entry into Bulgaria, to his recruitment by the CIA, to Michael’s commissioning in the Army, to Michael’s capture by a Serb SPETSNAZ team in Macedonia, and to Michael’s eventual marriage to the daughter of the man who kidnapped him as a child. It is the stops along the journey that weave an intricate series of heart-stopping events built around complex, often diabolical characters. The reader experiences CIA espionage during the Balkans War, attempted assassinations in the United States, and the grisly exploits of a psychopathic killer.
“Evil Deeds” is an adrenaline-boosting story about revenge, love, and the triumph of good over evil.
“TERROR CELL”
DANFORTH SAGA (#2)
“Terror Cell” pits Bob Danforth, a CIA Special Ops Officer, against Greek Spring, a vicious terrorist group that has operated in Athens, Greece for three decades. Danforth’s mission in the summer of 2004 is to identify one or more of the members of the terrorists in order to bring them to justice for the assassination of the CIA’s Station Chief in Athens. What Danforth does not know is that Greek Spring plans a catastrophic attack against the 2004 Summer Olympic Games.
Danforth and his CIA team are hampered by years of Congressionally mandated rules that have weakened U.S. Intelligence gathering capabilities, and by indifference and obstructionism on the part of Greek authorities. His mission becomes even more difficult when he is targeted for assassination after an informant in the Greek government tells the terrorists of Danforth’s presence in Greece.
In “Terror Cell,” Badal weaves a tale of international intrigue, involving players from the CIA, the Greek government, and terrorists in Greece, Libya, and Iran—all within a historical context. Anyone who keeps up with current events about terrorist activities and security issues at the Athens Olympic Games will find the premise of this book gripping, terrifying, and, most of all, plausible.
“Joe Badal takes us into a tangled puzzle of intrigue and terrorism, giving readers a tense well-told tale and a page-turning mystery.”
—Tony Hillerman, New York Times bestselling author
“THE NOSTRADAMUS SECRET”
DANFORTH SAGA (#3)
This latest historical thriller in the Bob Danforth series builds on Nostradamus’s “lost” 58 quatrains and segues to present day. These lost quatrains have surfaced in the hands of a wealthy Iranian megalomaniac who believes his rise to world power was prophesied by Nostradamus. But he sees the United States as the principal obstacle to the achievement of his goals. So, the first step he takes is to attempt to destabilize the United States through a vicious series of terrorist attacks and assassinations.
Joseph Badal offers up another action-packed story loaded with intrigue, fascinating characters and geopolitical machinations that put the reader on the front line of present-day international conflict. You will be transported from a 16th century French monastery to the CIA, to crime scenes, to the Situation Room at the White House, to Middle Eastern battlefields.
“The Nostradamus Secret” presents non-stop action in a contemporary context that will make you wonder whether the story is fact or fiction, history or prophesy.
“ “The Nostradamus Secret” is a gripping, fact-paced story filled with truly fanatical, frightening villains bent on the destruction of the USA and the modern world. Badal’s characters and the situations they find themselves in are hair-raising and believable. I couldn’t put the book down. Bring on the sequel!”
—Catherine Coulter, New York Times bestselling author of “Double Take”
“THE LONE WOLF AGENDA”
DANFORTH SAGA (#4)
With “The Lone Wolf Agenda,” Joseph Badal returns to the world of international espionage and military action thrillers and crafts a story that is as close to the real world of spies and soldiers as a reader can find. This fourth book in the Danforth Saga brings Bob Danforth out of retirement to hunt down lone wolf terrorists hell bent on destroying America’s oil infrastructure. Badal weaves just enough technology into his story to wow even the most a-technical reader.
“The Lone Wolf Agenda” pairs Danforth with his son Michael, a senior DELTA Force officer, as they combat an OPEC-supported terrorist group allied with a Mexican drug cartel. This story is an epic adventure that will chill readers as they discover that nothing, no matter how diabolical, is impossible.
“A real page-turner in every good sense of the term. “The Lone Wolf Agenda” came alive for me. It is utterly believable, and as tense as any spy thriller I’ve read in a long time.”
—Michael Palmer, New York Times bestselling author of “Political Suicide”
“THE PYTHAGOREAN SOLUTION”
STAND-ALONE THRILLER
The attempt to decipher a map leads to violence and death, and a decades-long sunken treasure.
When American John Hammond arrives on the Aegean island of Samos he is unaware of events that happened six decades earlier that will embroil him in death and violence and will change his life forever.
Late one night Hammond finds Petros Vangelos lying mortally wounded in an alley. Vangelos hands off a coded map, making Hammond the link to a Turkish tramp steamer that carried a fortune in gold and jewels and sank in a storm in 1945.
On board this ship, in a waterproof safe, are documents that implicate a German SS Officer in the theft of valuables from Holocaust victims and the laundering of those valuables by the Nazi’s Swiss banker partner.
“Badal is a powerful writer who quickly reels you in and doesn’t let go.”
—Pat Frovarp & Gary Shulze, Once Upon A Crime Mystery Bookstore
“SHELL GAME”
STAND-ALONE THRILLER
“Shell Game” is a financial thriller using the economic environment created by the capital markets meltdown that began in 2007 as the backdrop for a timely, dramatic, and hair-raising tale. Joseph Badal weaves an intricate and realistic story about how a family and its business are put into jeopardy through heavy-handed, arbitrary rules set down by federal banking regulators, and by the actions of a sociopath in league with a corrupt bank regulator.
Like all of Badal’s novels, “Shell Game” takes the reader on a roller coaster ride of action and intrigue carried on the shoulders of believable, often diabolical characters. Although a work of fiction, “Shell Game,” through its protagonist Edward Winter, provides an understandable explanation of one of the main reasons the U.S. economy continues to languish. It is a commentary on what federal regulators are doing to the United States banking community today and, as a result, the damage they are inflicting on perfectly sound businesses and private investors across the country and on the overall U.S. economy.
“Shell Game” is inspired by actual events that have taken place as a result of poor governmental leadership and oversight, greed, corruption, stupidity, and badly conceived regulatory actions. You may be inclined to find it hard to believe what happens in this novel to both banks and bank borrowers. I encourage you to keep an open mind. “Shell Game” is a work of fiction that supports the old adage: You don’t need to make this stuff up.
“Fiction Master, Joseph Badal has another winner in “Shell Game.” Take a roller coaster ride through the maze of modern banking regulations with one of modern fiction’s most terrifying sociopaths in the driver’s seat. Along with its compelling, fast-paced story of a family’s struggle against corruption, “Shell Game” raises important questions about America’s financial system based on well-researched facts.”
—Anne Hillerman & Jean Schaumberg, WORDHARVEST
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