by
James Rosen
A new spy thriller, "High Hand," is the work of three authors toiling under the pseudonym Curtis J. James.
One author of the novel is Detroit area native, James Rosen, a political correspondent in Washington for McClatchy newspapers. Rosen, who grew up in Oak Park, is the brother of Detroit U.S. District Judge Gerald Rosen.
The other authors are James Ellenberger, who worked for nearly 30 years in numerous capacities with the national AFL-CIO, and Dr. Curtis Harris, a physician-scientist who is world renowned in the field of cancer research. Harris is chief of the Laboratory of Human Carcinogenesis at the NIH National Cancer Institute and an adjunct Professor of Oncology at Georgetown University School of Medicine.
The website for the book describes it this way:
Is there a connection between a bomb blast meant to kill the presumptive Republican presidential nominee and a group of prominent men who played poker in Moscow years ago? What is Operation Long Shadow, and what does it have to do with the xWave—a new high-tech device that can receive and transmit data via brainwaves? Frank Adams must find out why he and his poker buddies are being targeted for assassination and gets surprising help from his ex-wife, Lisa Hawkes, a brilliant Russian linguist and CIA covert agent, to find out the truth in this international thriller.
One prominent journalist and author David Maraniss, an associate editor at the Washington Post, whose last book was on Detroit, called "Once in a Great City," writes:
"With seamless writing and an absorbing account of international intrigue, the authors of High Hand prove to be three aces of the spy thriller genre. Everything about this illuminating first novel feels wholly authentic."
Serge Kovaleski of the New York Times writes:
"As a journalist who has written about my father's adventures as a CIA spy at the height of the Cold War, I can authoritatively say that the authors of High Hand totally grasp the complex craft of espionage and they have been able to turn that into an enthralling work of fiction that is high-voltage from the opening scene."
